THE EXPLICABLE AND THE INEXPLICABLE: GOTHIC MANIFESTATIONS IN FOUR OF THOMAS HARDY'S NOVELS

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

at the University of Leicester

Jane Louise Liljedahl Department of English University of Leicester

68,050 words

July 2002

UMI Number: U158362

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,

a note will indicate the deletion.

Dissertation Publishing

UMI U158362Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author.

Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.All rights reserved. This work is protected against

unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway

P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Abstract ofTHE EXPLICABLE AND THE INEXPLICABLE: GOTHIC

MANIFESTATIONS IN FOUR OF THOMAS HARDY’S NOVELSby Jane Liljedahl

In this thesis I will examine how Hardy uses Gothic manifestations within his novels to allude to the inexplicable-objects and events that defy rational explanation. The Gothic is a medium of faith that alerts us to the mysterious unknown that is real, but elusive, gesturing toward a reality that is not itself. By acknowledging the non- rational, the Gothic liberates feelings and emotions, leading to an expansion of consciousness with no restrictions or boundaries.1 In turn, Gothic literary themes, tropes, and representations offer limitless possibilities that evade language. Unable to express his quasi-religious intuitions in a scientific, philosophical or religious creed, Hardy used the crude machinations of Gothic literary convention to express these intuitions.

By introducing examples of Gothic writing in Hardy’s novels and comparing them with conventional Gothic literature, I will provide a general overview of how Hardy utilizes Gothic conventions to express his own sense of the Gothic. Establishing a historical account of the term “Gothic”, the corresponding literary genre will be studied, introducing specific examples of writing from some of the leading practitioners of the Gothic literary period-Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis and Charles Maturin-giving special attention to the related ideas of Edmund Burke. Jane Austen’s parody of the formulaic Gothic will also be a focus.

Although Hardy is not a Gothic writer in the manner of the eighteenth-century Walpole or Radcliffe, he uses traditional and non-traditional Gothic literary conventions in his novels. Like most Gothic authors, he often alludes to the existence of an inexplicable entity, possibly of supernatural origin. In his earlier novels, he discounts the power of such a force and offers reasonable explanations for events that appear inexplicable. However, no similar clarification is offered in his later novels. Meanwhile, nineteenth-centry adaptations of Gothic convention give Hardy the opportunity to overturn and subvert assumptions, beliefs and authoritarian traditions. He initially expresses muted criticism of institutions, especially the Christian church, but as his novel-writing career progresses, his reproach turns to condemnation.

This study will concentrate on four of Hardy’s published works; a pair from the beginning of his nove-writing career and two from the later stages. Desperate Remedies (1871) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) display his early attempts at exploring Gothic themes and imagery. The Woodlanders (1887) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) show his progress in achieving coalescence and coherence with Gothic concepts and figures, as Hardy utilizes themes, images, conventions, and manifold allusions to express his sense of the Gothic. Yet, by its very nature, the Gothic remains inexplicable, for if it can be fully explained it is no longer Gothic.2

1 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Coherence of Gothic Convention (New York: Methuen, 1986), 3.2 James Kincaid, “ ‘Designing Gourmet Children or, KIDS FOR DINNER’ chap. in Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth-Century, eds. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys (Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000), 3.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the Faculty of Arts at the University of Leicester

for a research grant that enabled me to study primary material at the Dorset

Museum in Dorchester and the British Library of Periodicals and Newspapers

in North London. I am grateful for the assistance of Lilian Swindall at the

Dorset Museum and the efficient and kind staff at the Dorchester Library,

whose services above and beyond the call of duty included finding a reel-to-

reel tape player within twenty-four hours of my request.

Thanks also to Phil Hayman, M.C.I.T., M.I.L.T. for his elucidation of

perplexities involving the eclectic mix of transport, the British monarchy, and

military history. I am grateful to Joyce Belanovic, grammar queen and

walking thesaurus, for sustaining me with tea, Doritos, and chocolate.

Peter Widdowson deserves recognition for his useful suggestions,

while I very much appreciate the helpful comments and unwavering support

of Joanne Shattock. I am in debt to Bill Myers for his encouragement, his

time, and his thoughts on the Gothic. To Vince Newey I give the greatest

thanks of all, as I never left a meeting with him without learning something

of value. He also gave me the time and space to simply read and think, and

when it came to helping me shape the thesis, he allowed enough distance to

ensure that the pages reflect my own thoughts and ideas. His assistance and

support have been invaluable.

Jane Liljedahl Leicester

CONTENTSIntroduction

Chapter One-Origins and Transformations: Gothic Fiction in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century

Gothic Literature

Chapter Two-Desperate Remedies: Hardy's Most Gothic Novel

Chapter Three-Gothic Integration in A Pair of Blue Eyes

Chapter Four-T/ie Woodlanders: An Amalgam of Simple and Sophisticated Gothic Conventions.

Chapter Five-The Prominence of the Gothic Past in Tess of the d'Urbervilles:

Conclusions

Bibliography

1-15

16-66

67-88

89-108

109-148

149-183

184-188

189-220

THE EXPLICABLE AND THE INEXPLICABLE: GOTHIC

MANIFESTATIONS IN FOUR OF THOMAS HARDY'S NOVELS

INTRODUCTION

GOTHIC ROOTS

Alarming and terrifying tales are nothing new, but the distinct literary

genre designated as "Gothic" is relatively modern. The Gothic

has got to reach towards what cannot be spoken; if all can be spoken, then there is not gothic. It can gesture towards the sublime, towards the blasphemous, or towards the magical, but it must never fall into the prosaic: the gothic has to alert us to the presence of agencies we cannot explain. We cannot explain them because they lie outside the realm of the explicable, outside of language. It's not that we don't know enough, knowledge is not the issue. If the gothic can be explained it is no longer gothic. That's why the endings of gothic novels, the explanations, are always read by good readers as parodic. They expose the inadequacy of explanations.1

1 James Kincaid, "'Designing Gourmet Children or, KIDS FOR DINNER' ", chap. in Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth-Century, eds. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys (Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000), 3.

Published in 1764, Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto is

commonly assumed to be the first Gothic novel, serving as the prototype for

later Gothic fiction. While the book is crude, with only perfunctory

characterization, it is in the pages of Otranto that Walpole first introduces

literary motifs and devices that we now distinctly recognize as Gothic. He

employed what came to be known as traditional Gothic settings: wild

mountainous regions, gloomy forests, subterranean passages and vaults,

ancient buildings, and decaying ruins. Thematically, Walpole highlights the

importance of time and the inescapable nature of the past. Using the

narrative technique of a story-within-a-story, he also focuses on the battle

between virtue and villainy. The story includes suggestive hints of

supernatural powers, mysterious events, strange apparitions, improbabilities,

and coincidences.

However, The Castle of Otranto is not Gothic by what it refers to-

underground passages, crumbling castles and particular modes of thought

and feelings-but by the means it uses to make that reference. Gothic

conventions, tropes, and representations point towards limitless possibilities

that evade language. Gesturing towards something that is not itself, the

Gothic is a medium of expression that alerts us to the mysterious, inexplicable

other that is real, but elusive.

Sedgwick says the function of the gothic is to "open horizons beyond

social patterns ... and institutionally approved emotions" and to liberate

feelings by acknowledging the non-rational.2 By accepting this definition, we

also have to accept "the discontinuity between ... a sense of the gothic" and

2 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Coherence of Gothic Convention (New York: Methuen, 1986), 3. -

Gothic conventions, modes, representations, and the like.3 In the Gothic, the

natural and supernatural are merged into a "continuous realm", where

the separations between physical and spiritual or holy and profane are violated to create a single greater domain. ... this double expansion produces the simultaneous investigation of inner complexities and a supernatural grandeur beyond human life ... temporally, it reaches towards archaic memories, ancestral remains ... and towards the future destruction of death.4

The augmentation of the consciousness obliterates all boundaries and

limitations, setting the mind free. The strictures of time are shattered, as the

expansion reaches towards the original formlessness of the primordial past

and the chaotic disorder of the future. Because death is the ultimate loss of

form, the Gothic is "drawn to death as well as life in its drive for

inclusiveness".5 This compulsive double expansion of consciousness and

reality may lead to riot, but the Gothic celebrates extremes of all kind,

including anarchy.6

Beginning in 1764, the formally defined Gothic literary period

terminated in 1820 with the publication of Charles Maturin's Melmoth the

Wanderer. Many refinements took place in the intervening years, as Ann

Radcliffe-the leading practitioner of the era-built upon Walpole's incipient

methods of allying inner moods with outer landscapes. She cultivated

expansive natural scenes that both affected and reflected the emotions of her

3 Sedgwick, 3.

4 Linda Bayer-Berembaum, The Gothic Imagination: Expansion in Gothic Literature and Art (Rutherford, Madison, and Teaneck, N.J.: Fairliegh Dickinson University Press, 1982), 143. I am indebted to the author for this argument.

5 Ibid., 144.

6 Judith Wilt, Ghost of the Gothic: Austen, Eliot, and Lawrence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 46.

heroines. Authors such as Matthew Lewis and Charles Maturin

sensationalized the genre by introducing eroticism and violence into their

novels, but they also began to provide psychological insight into mental

torment and physical suffering.

Gothic fiction enjoyed its greatest popularity in the three decades

following 1790, as ''between 1796 and 1806 ... at least one-third of the novels

published in Great Britain" were Gothic in nature.7 Remaining in vogue for

almost thirty years, such offerings began to receive a bad name in the early

nineteenth-century. Sheer repetition contributed to the decline, while the

reputation of Gothic fiction was further tarnished by the fact that many

alleged Gothic novels were merely the "the mechanical outpourings of

second-rate authors".8 Such stories written in a formulaic manner became

targets of ridicule, with Jane Austen's parody of the Gothic genre, Northanger

Abbey, among the most notable. Sold in 1803, it was only published

posthumously in 1818. Two years later, Maturin's Melmoth marked the end

of the Gothic literary period. However, the Gothic tradition continued to

influence fiction writers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries

and still does so today.

CRITICISM

Filtered and distilled through more than two hundred years, the

Gothic is in a continual process of change, with the literary Gothic being

reclaimed and reconstituted in response to contemporary literary theories and

7 Elizabeth Napier, "Preface", to The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-Century Literary Form (Oxford: Claredon: 1987), vii.

8 Marshall Brown, "A Philosophical View of the Gothic Novel", Studies in Romanticism 26 (1987), 275.

different critical approaches. The term "Gothic" comes from the Goths, a

Germanic tribe who flourished during the early Middle Ages. Later

generations considered the race to be ignorant, barbaric and uncivilized; thus,

in the Renaissance, "Gothic" began to be used in a pejorative manner, taking

on negative connotations that still linger in the field of literature. Even at the

height of Gothic fiction in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century,

"critics were almost univocal in their condemnation of what was seen as an

unending torrent of popular trashy novels".9 Victorian novels in the Gothic

mode were similarly denounced, as it was feared that the overall low moral

tone of such books would encourage readers to indulge in immoral acts

themselves. In the twentieth-century, science fiction, horror films and the

many serious and comedic cinematic permutations of Frankenstein, Dracula

and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have helped sustain Gothic fiction. Visual

mediums have largely replaced the written word, "and in this respect, Gothic,

always nourished in popular culture, is perfectly at home".10

There has been a critical prejudice against Gothic literature since the

1920's, partly because of its association with mass culture, but also due to the

fact that "non- or anti-realist forms (gothic melodrama, etc.) have been

regarded as seditious and imical by the dominant literary culture and have

been marginalized".11 The Gothic literary period has been persistently

viewed as an anomaly, a literary curiosity, and an inferior and hackneyed

genre, though attitudes have slowly been changing.

9 Fred Botting, Gothic, The New Critical Idiom Series, ed. John Drakakis (London: Routledge, 1996), 21-2.

10 Ibid., 156.

11 Peter Widdowson, Hardy in History: A Study in Literary Sociology (London: Routledge, 1989), 76.

Although Gothic novels continued to be largely disregarded through

the pre and post-war eras, Montague Summers' The Gothic Quest (1938) and

Devendra Varma's The Gothic Flame (1957), stood out as two of the more

favorable and influential studies concerning the development of the Gothic

novel.12 Both critical histories were republished by Russell and Russell in

1964, anticipating Jacqueline Howard and Anne William's proposal that the

rehabilitation of Gothic actually began with Robert Hume's 1969 PMLA

article, "Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel".13

Similarly G. R. Thompson's collection, The Gothic Imagination: Essays in

Dark Romanticism (1974), renewed interest in the Gothic by exploring its

relationship with Romanticism. Published in 1978, Coral Ann Howell's

Love, Mystery and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction was one of the first book-

length re-evaluations of Gothic literature.14

Recent critical theories and altered values further aided the reputation

of the Gothic genre. Assisted by Gilbert and Gubar's seminal feminist text,

The Madwoman in the Attic (1979), Ellen Moers' concept of the female Gothic

opened up one of "the most significant directions in recent Gothic

12 Summers, The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel (1938) (New York: Russel and Rossel, 1984); and Varma, The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England (1957) (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964).

13 Howard, Reading Gothic Fiction: A Bakhtinian Approach (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1994); and Williams, Art of Darkness: a Poetics of Gothic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); qtd. in Wolfreys, "Preface", to Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth-Century, eds. Ruth Robbins and Wolfreys (Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000), xx. Hume, "Gothic Versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel", PML 84 (1969): 282-47.

14 G. R. Thompson, The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism (Pullman, WA.: Washington State Press, 1974 ); and Coral Ann Howells, Love, Mystery and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction (London: Athlone, 1978).

criticisms".15 Attitudes and practices continued to shift, as David Punter and

Jeremy Hogle examined the Gothic in relation to power and desire. Judith

Wilt, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Kate Ferguson Ellis enlarged the critical

horizons by discussing issues of control and sexuality, distinguishing between

a female and male mode of written Gothic; the former "indulging ... [in]

imaginative excess" and the latter "rationalizing".16 Other critics who have

influenced my own understanding of Gothic literature and concepts are Linda

Bayer-Berenbaum, who discussed the importance of imagination and

expansion in Gothic art, and Julian Wolfreys, who identified Victorian Gothic

literary conventions.17 I am indebted to Frank Botting's historical overview

in Gothic (1996), and found Victor Sage and Allan Lloyd Smith's views in

Modern Gothic (1996) invaluable.18

The Gothic factors in Hardy's poetry and fiction have not gone

unnoticed. Taking a general approach, James F. Scott and F. B. Pinion identify

and briefly discuss the Gothic imagery that Hardy employs in his prose. In

specific novel criticism, Kevin Moore suggests that Gothic conventions and

the detective tradition propel Desperate Remedies. Meanwhile, S. F. Johnson

studies Hardy and the sublime in relation to Edmund Burke, the philosopher

15 Gilbert and Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 1979); and and Moers, Literary Women (London: W.H. Allen, 1978); and quotation from Botting, 19;

16 Punter, A Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fiction 1765 to Present (London: Longman, 1980); Hogle, 'The Restless Labyrinth: Cryptonomy in the Gothic Novel", Arizona Q uarterly 36 (1980); Wilt, Ghost of the Gothic; Sedgwick, The Coherence of Gothic Convention (New York: Methuen, 1986); and Ellis, The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); quotation from Botting, 61.

17 Bayer-Berenbaum; and Wolfreys, Victorian Gothic.

18 Victor Sage and Allan Lloyd Smith, eds., "Introduction", in Modem Gothic: A Reader (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 19%.

whose ideas greatly influenced the late eighteenth-century concept of

Gothic.19

There are other critical works that focus on Hardy's Gothic mode, but

because of the pejorative perception of the Gothic that has only recently

abated, many critics remain loath to bring up the subject or use the term in

their discussions. For example, allusions to the supernatural are an essential

element of Gothic literature. In her seminal, Folkways in Thomas Hardy,

Ruth Firor explains how Hardy evokes an aura of suggestive supematuralism

in his writings, but she does not acknowledge any Gothic influence. J .O.

Bailey also addresses the issue of the supernatural in "Hardy's

Mephistophelian Visitants", emphasizing the strange and satanic

endowments of some of Hardy's protagonists, but he does note the effect of

the Gothic either.20

Similarly, prompted by The Monk and M elm oth, the erotic became a

Gothic principle in the early nineteenth-century, but no contemporary critic

connects Gothic eroticism with Hardy. The sexual elements in his fiction

attract comment, as Richard Taylor points to the pervasive presence of sexual

pressure in the lesser-known novels. Rosemarie Morgan's work, W omen

and Sexuality in Thomas Hardy's Novels and Marjorie Garson's W o m e n ,

19 Scott, 'Thomas Hardy's Use of the Gothic: An Examination of Five Representative Works", Nineteenth-Century Fiction 17 (1963): 363-80; and Pinion, A Hardy Companion (London: Macmillan, 1968), and "Spectacle and Symbol in Thomas Hardy's Fiction", Philological Quarterly 44 (1965): 527-44; Moore, "The Poet Within the Architect's Ring: Desperate Remedies, Hardy's Hybrid Detective-Gothic Narrative", Studies in the Novel 14 (Spring 1982): 31-42; and Johnson, "Hardy and Burke's Sublime", chap. in Style in Prose Fiction, ed. Harold C. Martin (New York: n. p., 1959), 55-86.

20 Ruth Firor, Folkways in Thomas Hardy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931); and J. O. Bailey, "Hardy's 'Mephistophelian Visitants' ",PMLA 61 (1946): 1146- 84.

Body, Text, are among the most influential in this context, but they also

ignore the effect of the Gothic.21

As highlighted by Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, subversion is

another feature of Gothic literature. Roy Morrell was one of the first critics to

recognize Hardy's tendency towards subversion and, more recently, Vince

Newey discusses how Hardy uses subversion to overthrow the idea of

redemption through self-sacrifice. Joe Fisher promotes the idea of a sexually

subversive Hardy, while Peter Widdowson maintains that the author

subverts the verisimilitude of his novels, arguing that in doing so, he

"destablizes the realist myth as whole" 22 Eagleton agrees that Hardy is an

anti-realist, pointing to the macabre and furious images that permeate his

novels.23 Nevertheless, no one postulates that the unrealistic aspects of

Hardy's fiction stem from the Gothic tenet of subversion.

Studying thematically Gothic aspects of Hardy's writing in isolation has

some value, but such an approach is limited. Hardy's Gothic images,

language, and tropes are not independent entities themselves; rather they are

interwoven in the text itself. His Gothic medium of expression is "made up

21 Richard Taylor, The Neglected Hardy: Thomas Hardy's Novels (Macmillan Press, 1982); Rosemarie Morgan, (London: Routledge, 1988); and Garson, Hardy's Fables of Integrity: Women, Body, Text (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1991).

22 Morrell, Thomas Hardy: The Will and the Way (Kuala Lumpur: n.p., 1965; Vince Newey, 'Thomas Hardy and the Forms of Making: Interpreting Jude the Obscure, chap, in Centering the Self: Subjectivity, Society and Reading From Thoma Grey to Thomas Hardy (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995); Fisher, The Hidden Hardy (Houndsmill, Macmillan, 1992); and Widdowson, Hardy in History, 74.

23 Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory (1976) (London: Verso, 1978).

of many mingled ideas, and can consist only in their union".24 It is though

this coalescence that his novels can be best understood.

In light of the recent renaissance of Gothic studies, the present study

aims to go beyond the mere identification of Gothic elements in Hardy's

writings. Instead, I will discuss how his employment of Gothic plots,

characters, images, and representations changed during the course of his

career. More importantly, I will explore how Hardy found a medium of

faith in the Gothic, using its conventions to express his sense of the Gothic.

HARDY AND THE VICTORIANS

Hardy was only one of many Victorians who rejected Christianity. As

their trust in a benevolent God faded or altogether disappeared, many people

found it difficult or impossible to sustain their belief. Geological and

evolutionary theories furthered the loss of faith, casting serious doubt upon

the concept of divine creation. Traditional religion was being displaced, with

nothing offered in its place except uncertainty. At the same time, there was a

deeply embedded belief espoused in the views of Victorian thinkers, such as

John Stuart Mill, George Eliot, and Herbert Spencer, that religious belief was

an imaginative necessity for man, but God could be eliminated from the

equation. Fellow man, lover, or mother could serve as appropriate objects of

worship, while other spiritual needs could be satisfied by a host of things,

including poetry, music, and art.

However, this was unacceptable to Hardy, as he condemned analogous

beliefs such as "labour-worship" and "wealth-worship" as superstitions that,

24 John Ruskin, "Nature of Gothic", in The Stones of Venice (1851-53), Vol. II, Chap. VI; qtd. in Prose of the Victorian Period, ed. William E. Buckler (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 362.

like Christianity, should be discarded.25 To him, reverential impulses could

not be sustained without religious truth, but this created a dilemma, as there

was no such truth. As a "man of strong religious needs and feelings", he

required some sort of belief system to replace what he felt to be an untenable

Christianity; some sort of faith that could sustain his emotional and spiritual

needs while he waited for the "Immanent Will" to become fully conscious.26

While he rejected dogmatic Christianity, Hardy was not an atheist, but

an agnostic with a "profound sense of the numinous".27 He believed in an

unknown, nebulous force or entity, calling it the First Cause, or Immanent

Will: a continually evolving consciousness with "creative and destructive

energy" that would eventually recognize the misery of humankind, and act to

alleviate the pain.28 His intuitions could not be contained in a religious,

philosophical, or scientific creed, but he found a medium for communicating

possibilities in the crude machinery of Gothic conventions and its allusions,

using it to "express the belief of the spiritual in the absence of belief in a

benevolent spirit".29

"Hardy's lucid recognition of the enormous losses which follow from

the vanishing of belief in God motivates his attempts to see ghosts and to talk

25 Thomas Hardy, letter to Clement Shorter, May 1909? in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy IV 1909- 1913, eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978), 21. 7 vols. Title subsequently referred to as CL IV .

26 See John Paterson, "The Return of the Native as Anti-Christian Document", Nineteenth-Century Fiction 14 (1959), 126; and T. R. M. Creighton, "Some Thoughts on Hardy and Religion", in Thomas Hardy After Fifty Years, ed. Lance St. John Butler (London: Macmillan, 1977), 67.

27 Ian Gregor, "Contrary Imaginings: Thomas Hardy and Religion", The Thomas Hardy Journal 2:2 (May 1988): 36.

28 J. H illis Miller, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Repetition as Immanent Design", in Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels (Oxford: Blackwell Press), 1982, 123.

29 Bayer-Berenbaum, 37.

himself into some sort of belief/'30 Intellectually, he did not believe in the

naive and superstitious credulity of the Gothic-the hidden voices and ghostly

powers-although he admitted;

half my time (particularly when I am writing verse) I believe-in themodem sense of the word ... in spectres, mysterious voices, intuitions,omens, dreams, haunted places, & c., & c. But then, I do not believe inthem in the old sense of belief any more.31

Hardy did not subscribe to the superstitious "old sense of belief". However,

having spent his childhood and adolescent years "among a people who still

thought in a primitive way ... and in whose hearts lingered the dark,

inexplicable fears of prehistoric man",32 he recognized its appeal. The idea

that there was some inexplicable controlling power in the world was

especially attractive to many Victorians. Hardy noted "that, beyond the

knowable there must always be an unknown".33 The medium of the Gothic,

and what it alluded to, lent itself to the attempt to comprehend an unknown

nebulous force.

Although Hardy expressed an interest in "non-rationalistic subjects ... a

principle for which there is no exact name", it remains doubtful that he ever

consciously formulated a coherent Gothic theory.34 He was aware of it

though, relating that as an architectural pupil, he trained in "the Gothic-art

30 J. Hillis Miller, "Fiction and Repetition", 145.

31 Letter to Caleb Saleby, Feb. 2,1915. in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy V: 1914-1919, eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978), 79. 7 vols. Title subsequently referred to as CL V.

32 Firor, 304.

33 Thomas Hardy, The Later Years of Thomas Hardy (1892-1928) (London: Macmillan, 1930; reprint, London: Studio Expressions, 1994), (reprint page numbers identical to original edition), 168. Title subsequently referred to as L Y.

34 Thomas Hardy, LY, 90.

13

principle ... the principle of spontaneity, found in mouldings, tracery, and

such like".35 He emphasized a direct connection between his instruction in

architecture and the writing of poetry, recognizing:

in architecture cunning irregularity is of enormous worth, and ... he carried on into his verse, perhaps in part unconsciously, the Gothic art-principle ... resulting in the 'unforeseen' character of his metres and stanzas.36

Although he never explicitly declared a similar correlation of architecture to

prose, a Gothic presence is discernible in his novels and short stories, as well

as his poetry.

Hardy is not a Gothic writer in the tradition of eighteenth and early

nineteenth-century writers such as Radcliffe or Maturin, nor does he work

exclusively in the genre. Just because a novel is called Gothic, it does not

automatically exclude it from all other genres. His novels are alternatively

romances, and/or comedies, tragedies, pastorals, mysteries, and myths, and in

them, he expresses his sense of the Gothic, with its belief of an unknowable

power, its expansion of consciousness and reality, and its acknowledgment of

the sometimes unfathomable strong impulses of man.

OVERVIEW

Chapter One will lay the foundations for the study, giving a historical

summary of Gothic and its changing definitions over time, with a special

emphasis on the traditional Gothic literary period and Victorian Gothic

fiction. Beginning with the origins of the term "Gothic", I will briefly trace its

evolution through the Renaissance and Enlightenment. A more extensive

35 Ibid., 78-9.

36 Ibid.

survey of the formally defined Gothic literary period (1764-1820) will follow,

concentrating on the improvements and advances made in the genre.

Some of the more notable authors discussed include Ann Radcliffe,

who understood the value of the Burkian sublime and utilized it to great

effect in her novels, especially The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Attention is

also given to the inception of sensational and erotic aspects of Gothic fiction,

as displayed in The Monk (1796) and Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), although

the latter focuses on Gothic emotions and the human mind. Finally, Jane

Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818) shows how the Gothic formula can be

subverted through irony and parody.

The first chapter will conclude with a discussion of Victorian Gothic

fiction. Nineteenth-century Gothic novels expanded to include more morbid

and furious episodes, with an additional emphasis on the psyche.

Metropolitan locations became the focus of terror, largely replacing the

gloomy forests and underground vaults of the conventional Gothic. Full of

"uncanny shadows",37 doubles, and vampire-like figures, Gothic fiction

reflected the particular Victorian anxiety and concern with dualities: reality

and unreality, natural and unnatural, reason and passion.

The next four chapters will concentrate on Hardy's novels, and explore

how and why he manipulated themes, tropes and content to express his sense

of the Gothic. I have chosen a pair of novels from the beginning and end of

his prose-writing career to illustrate how he moves from the simple

utilization of typical Gothic tropes, to the more complex merger of these

conventions with serious Gothic themes. Desperate Remedies (1871) is the

subject of the second chapter, while A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) is discussed in

37 Botting, 15.

chapter three. These novels display his first tentative attempts at exploiting

Gothic images. He is able to merge Gothic convention with serious theme in

isolated scenes, conveying a simple sense of the Gothic, but he is unable to

consistently sustain such an approach. Chapter five focuses on The

Woodlanders (1887) and chapter six delves into Tess of the d'Urbervilles

(1891), showing how Hardy's use of the Gothic altered during his novel-

writing career. The Victorian Gothic obsession with dualities becomes more

dominant in these later novels, as he deals with the unnatural and natural,

dream and nightmare, and fantasy and reality. Grotesque and macabre

images reflect the more disturbing and extreme elements of Gothic

spirituality, while irony plays a large part, especially in Tess. In the

conclusion, I briefly review Hardy's Gothic mode and look to the future,

beyond his novel writing-career.

Some readers will be puzzled by the exclusion of Jude the Obscure.

This novel was not selected because an examination of Hardy's last written

novel (penultimate in publication date) would be limited without a

concomitant review of the architectural Gothic Revival. Such a survey is

beyond the scope of this study and, as Timothy Hands indicates, the

connections between Hardy's architectural background and his writing

deserve distinct specialist treatment.38 His poetry also warrants more

attention, as do the other excluded texts, such as The Return of the Native,

The Mayor of Casterbridge, and The Dynasts, among others. These will be

studied more extensively in the future, but in light of Hardy's prolific literary

offerings, my current work must necessarily be selective.

38 Qtd. in Norman Page, ed., Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 18.

CHAPTER ONE

ORIGINS AND TRANSFORMATIONS: GOTHIC FICTION IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND

EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURIES

ORIGINS

The term "Gothic" was originally a reference to the Goths, a Germanic

people-possibly from the Baltic region-who progressively moved south,

extending into the regions around the Black Sea by the third century. They

invaded the Roman Empire periodically over the next two hundred years

and, in the aftermath of Rome's decline in the fifth century, went on to

establish kingdoms in Italy, France, and Spain until they disappeared "into

the ethnic melting-pots of the southern Mediterranean".39

39 Chris Baldick, "Introduction" to The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), xii.

"Gothic" became a disparaging term during the Renaissance, as the

Goths were considered to be uncivilized, uncouth, and combative. Holding

primarily negative connotations, the term became synonymous with

medievalism. It reflected the perception that the early Middle Ages, when the

Goths flourished, were a barbarous period where ignorance, fancy, and wild

extravagance held sway; where religious superstition, strange rituals, and a

belief in magic coexisted with faith in an omnipotent Judeo-Christian God.

Displays of the unenlightened Gothic past-romantic literature, medieval

sculpture, music, and architecture-were usually thought of as examples of an

inferior civilization, produced by an irrational and ignorant people.40

In contrast, the people of the Renaissance felt they belonged to a more

refined era. In their time, the arts, literature, and politics all flourished and

prospered. An emphasis was placed on the human power of expression and

thought, although the power and authority of the Christian church remained

unquestioned. The Age of Enlightenment similarly celebrated rational

humanism, but faith was viewed with more skepticism. Attempting to

temper a religion they saw as full of superstition, the ruling classes

discounted the idea of a superhuman or supernatural God, preferring to place

their faith in human reason. Ordered on Greek and Roman culture, artistic

extravagances or excesses of any kind were looked upon with disfavour. All

arts had to conform to an aesthetic and moral code, based on harmony and

order. Buildings with regular proportions and a sense of uniformity were

preferred over the jagged irregularities of Gothic architecture, while literature

was seen as a vehicle of education, not entertainment.

40 Botting, 22. I am indebted to Fred Botting's Gothic for my understanding of Gothic.

The definition of Gothic expanded in the late eighteenth-century, as

the previously privileged classical values, in turn became the archaic products

of the past, at odds with a new cultivated and discerning age. No longer

referring to the Goths alone, Gothic became a general derogatory term used to

describe "the tyranny and barbarity of feudal times"- the unrestrained

excesses, irrationality, and immaturity supposedly prevalent in the Middle

Ages.41 Catholicism, with its elaborate rites, strange rituals and connections

to Rome, also became associated with the Gothic, as did the primarily papal

Latin South. Paradoxically, at the same time,

characteristics like extravagance, superstition, fancy and wildness, which were initially considered in negative terms became associated, in the course of the eighteenth century, with a more expansive and imaginative potential for aesthetic production.42

A romantic fascination with the intemperate exuberance of the Middle

Ages developed in the late eighteenth-century. The new enthusiasm for the

arts, manners, and perceived chivalry and values of this era manifested itself

in Gothic literature and the architectural Gothic Revival. Full of mystery,

imagination, and emotion, the Gothic novel freed readers from the

rationalism of the Enlightenment, providing a welcome, albeit temporary,

respite. Medieval Gothic architecture, which "obeyed no rules" and "no

cannons of proportion", became popular primarily because of its association

with literature, but it was also related to an emerging interest in Gothic

archeology.43

41 Botting, 5.

42 Ibid., 22.

43 Alice Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedrals of England (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), 11.

The repudiation of the medieval Gothic age, with its irrationality,

fancy, and superstition, was tempered by the increasing allure of these very

excesses. Similarly, the dismissal of the archaic Gothic ideals and institutions

that supported and fostered these excesses was at odds with the nostalgic

attraction of these values and structures. An ambivalent attitude towards the

Gothic emerged, which had implications not only for Gothic literature, but

for the very nature of Gothic itself.

THE LITERARY GOTHIC

The formally defined British literary Gothic period lasted slightly more

than half a century, beginning with the 1764 publication of Horace Walpole's

The Castle of Otranto and concluding with the 1820 edition of Charles

Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer . These dates loosely correlate to the end

of the neoclassical era in the mid-eighteenth-century and the inception of the

Romantic age in the early years of the nineteenth-century. (Engrossed in

writings of revolutionary fervor during the late-eighteenth century,

America's Gothic period began later, culminating in the 1850s with the tales

of Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.) It was a time when literature

itself was undergoing a major change, becoming less didactic as authors

moved away from the paradigms expressed by the dominant literary class,

and paid more attention to the tastes of the reading public. Literature still

held its alleged cultural superiority, while thriving Gothic fiction was linked

with supposedly inferior mass culture.

Derived from myths, romances, supernatural stories, Renaissance

drama, and the eighteenth-century graveyard poets, traditional eighteenth

and early nineteenth-century Gothic fiction relied on conventional plots,

themes, settings, and techniques, many of which can be traced directly to

Walpole. Intended to provoke terror and alarm through fearful suspense,

the conventional Gothic novel was located in the Middle Ages and set in a

foreign country, with common landscapes such as ancient castles, ruins, and

sublime environments augmenting the fright and mystery. "Ruined

vestiges of archaic religious or social institutions",44 such as cathedrals,

churches, convents, and monasteries, were also typical. A preponderance of

strange events, coincidences, improbabilities, apparently supernatural

occurrences, and ominous prophecies were standard in the Gothic tale.

Prevalent themes included time, particularly the haunting of the past and the

inability to escape previous deeds; issues which often manifested themselves

in forbidding predictions. Violence, or more often, the possibility of violence

was a common thread, as was the fear of confinement.

Typical Gothic characters and plot devices included the archetypal

model of an innocent young woman, cut off from familiar surroundings with

little hope of escape, and threatened with evil, real or imagined. This

potential menace usually came in the form of aristocratic male interlopers, so

there was always a danger-rarely acknowledged in early Gothic fiction-of

excess passion, leading to uncontrollable violence directed at the female.

Often assisted by an unknown chivalrous man, the emphasis was on the

restoration of the heroine to her proper place, maintaining the rightful line of

succession.

Many devices and machinations that we now consider "Gothic" can be

directly traced to Horace Walpole. He set the terms for defining what Gothic

signified in fiction. He referred to The Castle of Otranto as " 'a Gothic story' "

because it was

44 William Axton, "Introduction" to The Monk, by Matthew Lewis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1961), viii.

set in (and in its original ruse, hailed from) some time between the eleventh and the thirteenth-centuries. It was 'Gothic' because it was 'Medieval'; and whilst the supposed original was printed in the 'black letter' (Germanic) type, its events took place in Italy.45

Walpole retained the Renaissance meaning of Gothic as a descriptive term,

but stripped it of its negative connotations. Since the novel was ostensibly

penned in the Middle Ages, it was accordingly Gothic. By asserting that the

tale was merely a translation of an Italian manuscript, written "between 1095

... and 1243", but only recently discovered "in the library of an ancient catholic

family in the north of England", he set up the narrative convention of a

stoiy-within-a-story.46 At the same time, he effectively placed the story in

medieval Italy, a Catholic quasi-fantasy land, far away from the gentle

Protestant shores of England.

The medieval trappings of ancient palaces or dilapidated churches

were ubiquitous in Gothic novels. Not only were they the repositories of

ancient culture, but also strange and frightening places of mystery.

Subterranean dungeons or vaults, crypts, and graveyards were common,

along with castles that had trap doors and secret stairways. These objects

became collective Gothic tropes, while the definition of the Gothic novel

expanded to include the "emotional effect of weird, supernatural, fantastic,

and terrifying events in a work of literature in which the Medieval cathedral

or castle served as a theater for such events."47

45 Robert Mighall, A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's N ightm ares (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1999), xvi.

46Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764) (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), "Preface," 3. All subsequent references to The Castle of Otranto are parenthetical, with page number.

47 G.R. Thompson, "Introduction" to The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism (Pullman, WA.: Washington State Press, 1974), 4.

All these Gothic elements are in place in The Castle of Otranto. Set in a

medieval castle with underground labyrinthine passages, it includes violent

deaths and false imprisonment, along with supernatural events such as large

floating statues. It also features an innocent propriety- bound maiden,

pursued by a fraudulent prince who is intent on producing a male heir, with

the attendant threat such a plan entails. The enigmatic and portentous

prophecy is stated on the first page, while the one-dimensional character types

are quickly sketched in.

Without even the pretext of a setting, Walpole begins the novel with

the intoned prediction, "That the castle and lordship of Otranto should pass

from the present family, whenever the real owner should he grown too large

to inhabit if ' (16). Manfred, the villain of the piece, is the tyrannical

patriarch of "the present family" occupying the castle. He loses his

bridegroom son on the eve of his nuptials, as, most improbably, the heir is

"dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, a hundred

times more large than any ever made for a human being, and shaded with a

proportional quantity of black feathers" (17). This huge head-piece belongs to

a nearby larger-than-life statue that commemorates Alfonso the Good, the

previous legitimate prince of the castle.

Manfred wrongfully accuses a young man named Theodore of causing

his son's death and imprisons him. Left with only one daughter to carry on

his name, Manfred decides to divorce his own wife and marry his dead son's

former fiancee, Isabella, in an attempt to produce a male heir. She flees from

his advances and ventures into the underground vaults of the castle, where

she is assisted by a mysterious man: Theodore, escaped from his captivity.

Although preposterous, a colossal guillotining helmet covered with

tufted decoration renders the enigmatic forecast recited at the beginning of the

novel more understandable. The prophecy is meant to be taken literally, with

the huge casque prefiguring the appearance of a similarly oversized

individual. Equally ridiculous, "overgrown parts of Alfonso's body keep

popping up around the castle."48

The theme of large proportions continues, as a knight recently

returned from the Crusades visits the castle with a "hundred gentlemen

bearing an enormous sword", pronouncing to all present that Manfred is not

the true lord of Otranto (62). Theodore is revealed as the genuine prince,

Manfred murders his own daughter in a case of mistaken identity, and the

castle walls crumble while the giant statue of Alfonso ascends to heaven. The

distraught Manfred admits that his grandfather obtained Otranto by nefarious

means. Reconciled with his wife, they retire relatively unpunished to a

contemplative religious life. Eventually, Isabella marries Theodore, the

legitimate heir, and order is restored "to a world in which an usurper has

broken the natural line of descent and seized possessions that are not

rightfully his."49

If judged solely on literary merits, The Castle of Otranto would have

faded into obscurity long ago. A ludicrous novel, it has a perfunctory plot and

simple characterization. However, at the time of its original publication in

1764, The Castle of Otranto was very popular with readers of the late

eighteenth-century, who were "hungry for magic and mystery after many

48 Paul Lewis, "Mysterious Laughter: Humor and Fear in Gothic Fiction", Genre 14 (1981): 314.

49 Donald Ringe, American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Lexington, KY.: University Press of Kentucky, 1982), 19.

decades of rationalism".50 As the first experimental Gothic novel, it

accommodated emotion and imagination and allowed for a reality beyond the

corporeal world; a realm that could not be explained by reason.

Initiated by Walpole in 1764, the Gothic genre had became a dominant

force in English fiction by the late eighteenth-century. Initially, it was

"women writers ... who took up his literary curiosity and transformed it into

a vehicle of didacticism as well as entertainment".51 Ann Radcliffe, the

foremost practitioner of Gothic novels in the 1790's, was one of the few

authors working in the genre who met with critical and popular favor. Her

novels were a perfect example of the female Gothic and she was praised for

her decorous plots and flowing style. In addition, her chaste heroines and

gallant heroes embodied eighteenth-century ideals, so impressionable readers

could identify with them without any danger of falling into immoral

behavior. Although associated with moral degeneration and irrationality,

most early Gothic novels advocated morality and reason.

Like Walpole before her, Radcliffe's novels are set far away from

England, with the locales of some of her novels-A Sicilian Romance (1790)

and The Italian (1797)-obvious. She gains more distance by guiding the

reader into a world of fantasy, as "the formal elegance of her prose lifts the

narrative out of the real world and into a distanced literary mode of

existence".52 This remoteness from reality, an escape from everyday

concerns, was a central feature of early Gothic literature.

50 Brian Hennessy, The Gothic Novel (Essex: Longman, 1978), 11.

51 Ellis, 52.

52 Howells, 29.

The action in Radcliffe's most popular novel, The Mysteries of

Udolpho (1794), takes place in France and Italy. Ostensibly set in the

sixteenth-century, the tale opens with an idyllic scene at the family home of

Emily St. Aubert, the French heroine. However, her comfortable and stable

life is soon shattered by the precipitous death of her parents. The newly

orphaned Emily is snatched away from her home by the villainous Montoni-

the new husband of her guardian aunt-and carried off to an isolated castle in

the mountains of Italy. Confined in the dismal Udolpho with only the

dubious comfort of her aunt, she finds her virtue and fortune threatened by

her step-uncle. Terror remains her constant companion and at every turn

she views supposedly supernatural sights and hears strange sounds.

Following the untimely death of her aunt, she begins to fear for her

own life. She escapes from the clutches of Montoni and returns to France,

living under the protection of a neighboring family. She eventually reclaims

her family estate of La Vallee and is reunited with her former suitor,

Valencourt. Meanwhile, the treacherous Montoni dies a nebulous death in

Italy.

Radcliffe follows many Gothic conventions in The Mysteries of

Udolpho, with a typical plot involving a virtuous heroine threatened by a

male interloper. She utilizes the Gothic tropes of underground passages and

crumbling castles, and includes purportedly supernatural events. However,

her most singular contribution to the Gothic novel is her alliance of

atmosphere and mood, as she employs landscapes within her texts, not only

to mirror her protagonist's state of mind, but also to quietly manipulate the

reader's own responses. Improving upon Walpole's primitive use of natural

scenery to portray the feelings of his characters, she wrote novelistic tableaus

26

which "arouse the reader's emotions while at the same time ... reflect the

feelings of the characters involved".53

Radcliffe usually begins and ends her novels with beautiful and gentle

pastoral scenes, which inspire the emotion of love. The first pages beautifully

describe the familiar mannered world from which the heroine hails, while in

the conclusion, the orderly sphere to which she has been restored is portrayed

in glowing terms. Following this pattern, in The Mysteries of Udolpho,

Emily's family home is initially presented as a place of natural splendor. The

grounds surrounding La Vallee, have

green woods and pastures; the flowery turf; the blue concave of the heavens; the balmy air; the murmur of the limpid stream; and even the hum of every little insect in the shade ... made mere existence bliss. (8)

Radcliffe appeals to the senses with "flowery turf", gentle "murmurs",

"hums", and "balmy" breezes. The incipient use of simple symbolism is

evident, as the "blue concave of heaven" conveys a quasi-religious feeling,

evoking the image of Eden.

When Emily returns from her trials and settles in France, the

environment is equally pleasant. Safely living under the protection of the

Dupont family, she travels along paths where the "fresh dew still hung under

every flower that peeped from among the grass; and now tripped sportively

along the path, on which the sunbeam darted and the checquered foliage

trembled" (146-7). Released from the terrors of Udolpho, the heroine's

happiness is affected and mirrored by the pleasing atmosphere.

However, in her trip through the subterranean labyrinths at Udolpho,

Emily is filled with a nameless dread and fears for her own life. The terrifying

53 Ibid., 33.

and suggestive presence of death reflect the heroine's concerns for her

personal safety. Confined underground in a clammy atmosphere,

they proceeded through a passage ... the walls of which were dripping with unwholesome dews, and the vapours, that crept along the ground, made the torch burn so dimly Emily saw, by uncertain flashes of light, the vaults beyond, and near her, heaps of earth, that seemed to surround an open grave. (345)

The symbolism is difficult to miss, as such macabre trappings are obviously

associated with death and mortality. Emily does not actually see any

skeletons or decaying remains in the vaults; thus, she cannot be horrified at

sights she does not see. However, Radcliffe notes that "obscurity leaves

something for the imagination to exaggerate"54, as the indistinct views

afforded by the "uncertain flashes of light" and the suggestive "heaps of dirt"

only serve to increase her fear. In Emily's state of terrified anticipation, she

dreads seeing or experiencing horrible things that exist only in her

imagination.

The visual view of a vast area of timberland also fills her with terror,

but this time it is combined with awe. Terror alone is not a source of the

sublime: it must be combined with amazement.

the immense pine forests ... the cliffs aspiring above ... now and then, an opening through the dark woods allowed the eye a momentary glimpse of the country above. The gloom of these shades, their solitary silence ... the tremendous precipices of the mountains ... each assisted to raise the solemnity of Emily's feelings into awe. ... She saw only images of dreadful sublimity. (224)

This landscape reaches to infinity, with the human eye unable to

perceive the boundaries. The forests indistinctly merge into mountainous

54 Radcliffe, 150.

regions, while the "dark woods" gloom and silence add to the "dreadful

sublimity" of the scenes. There are aspiring cliffs and "precipices of the

mountains". The "momentary glimpse" through the trees impresses upon

the imagination the possibility of even more fascinating and extraordinary

landscapes beyond. The vastness of the woods stretching towards the

heavens, the dimness, and absence of sound are all sources of the sublime.

Combined, they serve to overwhelm Emily. Both affecting and reflecting her

feelings of fright and awe, the entire atmosphere transports her to an higher

area of awareness, where the mind is filled with a sense of solemn reverence

and wonder: a state of sublimity.

While Ann Radcliffe produced both idyllic and threatening

environments, she was more interested in terror and horror, the primary

sources of the sublime and the main ingredients of Gothic literature. She was

influenced heavily by the philosopher Edmund Burke, who developed an

aesthetic theory of the sublime and beautiful in A Philosophical Enquiry

(1757). Although better known for his writings on the French Revolutions,

his Enquiry became a standard reference for many Gothic writers.

He attempted to define the sublime and the beautiful, noting that each

was built on different principles.

The great has terror for its basis; which, when it is modified, causes that emotion in the mind, which I have called astonishment; the beautiful is founded on mere positive pleasure, and excites in the soul that feeling, which is called love.55

The delight derived from beautiful objects or pleasant experiences induces

love, a calming influence that soon lapses into a state of indifference and is

55 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 145.

rarely a source of the sublime.56 On the other hand, sheer terror, when

combined with a sense of astonishment, is a source of the sublime. The

sublime, i.e., "the great", uses terrifying views and encounters to encourage

feelings of amazement.

One of Burke's "grander passions", the sublime is an object or

experience that tends to inspire intense emotions because of some elevating

quality of grandeur beyond corporeal life. Acknowledging the omnipotence

of God and the power of the scriptures, he argues that both "sacred and

profane writers" established the sublime as a "general sentiment of

mankind".57 Terrifying, solemn, or austere landscapes are a source of the

sublime, as they can generate awe, wonder, terror, or horror. These profound

emotions expand consciousness and reality, uplifting the soul with a sense of

infinity and empowering the imagination to realize its own strength.

According to Burke, these strong feelings are inseparable from "our idea of

the divinity", and he further insists, "some sort of approach towards infinity"

is necessary to "form the grander passions".58 The cathedral with its spires

ascending towards heaven, the mountain soaring into the clouds, the blue

ocean merging into the horizon, and the forests stretching as far as the eye can

see are all sublime landscapes, provoking awe and wonder as they reach

towards infinity.

Burke also asserts that whatever triggers "the idea of pain and danger

. . .or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that

is, it is a productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of

56 Burke, 83.

57 Ibid., 64.

58 Burke, 64,58.

feeling."59 Forbidding castles and ancient cathedrals-products of an ancient

and mysterious past-provoke feelings of terror and astonishment.

Graveyards and underground vaults can prompt similar emotions, as they

are representative of death, the final mystery. However, in many cases tombs

and sepulchers lead only to terror, as characters confront their own mortality.

Burke produces an extensive list of terrifying objects and experiences

that are explicitly productive of the sublime. Lightning and thunder are

frightening, but also inspire awe. So too does the opposite: utter darkness and

universal silence. Any "greatness of dimension" of length, height or depth is

a source of the sublime, as is the minuteness of dimension.60 Furthermore

the "apparent disorder" of the biggest of objects-such as the stars in the

heavens-"augments the grandeur". 61 Never weak or mediocre, the

sublime is profound and powerful, and is inherently linked with the sublime,

the Gothic, which has "a preference for power over beauty".62 A state of

terror and awe is the mark of the sublime, while the attendant expansion of

consciousness and reality is expressive of the Gothic, as it frees the mind to

explore inner and external space, with no boundaries. The Gothic reaches

towards infinity; something beyond the physical world; an unknown realm

outside the ken of human understanding.

Sublime landscapes and environments feature so largely in Gothic

fiction because Burke gives writers the language and images to generate

imposing atmospheres that are linked with particular emotions. Authors no

59 Ibid., 36.

60 Burke, 66.

61 Burke, 66.

62Bayer-Berenbaum, 144.

longer need to explicitly "insist on the intensity" of their protagonists'

emotions because they had already "depicted them by means of ... depiction

of the setting."63 Since Gothic literature takes place in an artificial world,

authors can create and manipulate their own aesthetic and fictive

environments. If the narrative demands a nightmarish, frightening, and

sublime scene to reflect the protagonist's mental state, the author is able to

offer one. If it necessitates a dreamlike and attractive setting to mirror a

character's happy attitude, this is easily available. Sites of terror and beauty

are plentiful in Gothic novels.

Radcliffe further developed Burke's aesthetic of the sublime in her

posthumously published essay, "On the Supernatural". While he never

made explicit the difference between terror and horror, she made an

important distinction between the two, asserting that

terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul andawakens the facilities to a high degree of life, the other contracts,freezes and nearly annihilates them.64

She promotes terror over horror as the more active emotion, as the

latter results in inertia and a state of passivity. In moments of horror, the

body becomes restricted in movement and the ability of the mind to

transcend its condition is negated. Thus, the subject remains unable to

overcome any danger. However, terror animates. As action and movement

returns to the body, the acuity of the mind is heightened, giving it a sense of

its own power. This state of mental and physical activity enables the subject

63 George Haggerty, Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form (University Park, PA.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 17.

64 Radcliffe, "On the Supernatural in Poetry", New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 7 (1826):149.

to recognize and expel the threatening object, restoring order. Paradoxically, it

is through active terror that the object of terror is removed.65

The goal of Gothic writers is to terrorize and horrify their readers by

sustaining an air of suspense. One of the major uncertainties in Udolpho

involves an appalling and horrific sight that Emily has seen behind a veil in a

disused room of Udolpho. Radcliffe continually refers to this subject: is it the

corpse of Emily's aunt, the mummified remains of a long dead individual, or

perhaps an sickening instrument of torture? Not until the final pages does

the readers discover that this shocking sight is a waxen figure wrapped in a

shroud, with the face slowly being eaten away by worms. While an

unpleasant sight, suggestive of death, the figure is not horrific in itself. Its

effect on Emily was so powerful only because she was already in a state of

terror.

In the end, this final mystery is solved. The supposedly supernatural

horrors that Emily encountered are explained away quite naturally and

logically. With her fortune restored and her honour intact, she is reunited

with her lover, while the villainous Montoni dies in Italy. To a current

reader the denouement is disappointing, but this compromise-however

inadequate it appeared to later generations-was highly popular it its own

time.

An eighteenth-century reader would be pleasantly terrified by Emily's

trials. Vicarious experiences "are delightful when we have an idea of pain

and danger, without being actually in such circumstances."66 Readers of The

Mysteries of Udolpho were doubly removed from any threat, reading a work

651 am indebted to Fred Botting for the genesis of this argument.

66 Burke, 47.

33

of fiction that was set two hundred years ago in the past and located in a

foreign country. The readers would also applaud what they perceived to be a

happy ending, although Ellis sees a subversion of domestic ideology in the

sentimental conclusion of The Mysteries of Udolpho.67 While Emily has

escaped from the confines of Udolpho and returned to a stable family life, she

is still imprisoned. She is in a comfortable and large cell, but she is still

trapped, marginalized by the conventional role of women in eighteenth-

century society.

Emily's remains a static character and it quickly becomes tedious to

read about the many troubles she passively endures. Her characterization

ensures that she neither grows, nor learns anything from her experiences.

Instead, as Coral Ann Howells notes, her behavior is only "a linear series of

responses to outlandish situations".68

While Judith Wilt and Kate Ferguson Ellis agree that the heroine is

"tiresome as a literary character", they point to her interest "as an ideological

character".69 Presented as the embodiment of eighteenth-century ideals, the

conduct of Radcliffe's heroines is always flawless and beyond reproach.

Therefore Emily, the image of purity, cannot have any knowledge of sexual

desire; she cannot "suspect the presence of that nature in the minds of

men".70 As a moral heroine, she must be innocent. The only terror she is

allowed to feel must come from the fear of being imprisoned and then

forgotten. Why then, is she worried by the fact that her bedchamber in

67 Ellis, 57.

68 Howells, 48.

69 Wilt, 134.

70 Ellis, 46.

Udolpho lacks an internal lock? Having accepted that she has "no hope of

succour", and prepared to endure "whatever punishment" Montoni might

inflict, why does she still attempt to secure the door by placing a heavy chair

against it? (224-5). Emily's actions subvert her presentation as a proper

heroine, raising questions about her perceived naivete, but it is doubtful this

was Radcliffe's intention. The author "scrupulously repressed" the concepts

of eroticism or desire in her novels, but later Gothic authors were not so

reticent about exploring the "murkier neurosis" of the carnal mind.71

Despite being associated with immorality and extravagance, the intent

of Radcliffe and many other Gothic authors, was to defend virtue and reason.

Yet, their novels were full of frenzied emotion and irrational fears. Set in

lands of fantasy, they were also burdened with unrealistic plots. This resulted

in an unresolved tension within the text, as the aim of the novel was often at

direct cross purposes with the fictional mode of presentation. Gothic

literature internalized the ambivalence that developed towards the Gothic in

the late eighteenth-century.

Already marked by uncertainty in the literary arena, the term "'Gothic"

became a political site of conflict. Both sympathizers and opponents of the

French Revolution invoked Gothic ideals to support their arguments.

Edmund Burke, whose theories of the sublime and beautiful had a major

effect on Gothic writers, was better known for defending the rights of the

monarchy in Reflections of the Revolution in France (1790). Ignoring the fact

that Marie Antionette was deeply unpopular, he turned the events of 1789

into a Gothic romance, casting the French queen as the heroine, threatened by

the villainous National Constituent Assembly. Lamenting the passing of the

71 Howells, 62.

35

age of chivalry, he expressed his disappointment that no attempt was made to

defend or safeguard her when she and Louis XVI were seized by a ferocious

and unruly crowd in Versailles, and forced to return to Paris. Displaying a

nostalgia for the Gothic tradition, he argued that the institutions associated

with the past-gallantry, the monarchy, hereditary privilege, and the Church-

were essential to ensure order. By transforming the revolt into a tale of good

versus evil, with all things French considered evil, Burke implicitly endorsed

the status quo in England.71

Condemning the same Gothic institutions that Burke deemed

indispensable, Thomas Paine-who returned to England in 1787 after agitating

for American independence-denounced France's "despotic government and

its arbitrary power, religious authority ... hereditary privileges".72 He saw

them as the outmoded remnants of a barbaric and irrational age. Also using

Gothic affiliations as a form of scorn, Mary Wollstonecraft supported the

overthrow of Louis XVI and the subsequent formation of the French

Constituent Assembly, rhetorically asking:

'Why was it a duty to repair an ancient castle, built in barbarous ages, of Gothic materials?...

You mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a Gothic pile , and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer.'73

Employing the Renaissance meaning of Gothic, with all its negative

connotations, she equated the French monarchy with an ancient Gothic

building; an outdated structure that needed to be destroyed, not rebuilt.

71 Botting, 86.

72 Ibid., 88.

73 Ibid., 88-9.

36

Chivalric values, the "idle tapestry" of the court, and the devotion to a

hypocritical church belonged to an ancient age of feudal injustice.

Wollstonecraft and Paine used the term , "Gothic", in defense of

revolution, but their writings were published before the Reign of Terror. As

the full horrors of the bloodletting across the channel became clear, a fearful

Britain quickly discarded such radical thoughts in favor of the more

conservative views espoused by Burke. Paine himself, who fled from

England to France in 1792, later voiced his opposition to the 1793 beheading of

Louis XVI and barely escaped execution himself.

While Radcliffe's response to the French Revolution and Reign of

Terror was to ignore it, other Gothic novels reflected its passion and violence.

Male writers especially, less constrained in matters of propriety than their

female counterparts, were able to exploit literarily the excesses and fury

displayed by the riotous French mobs. Matthew Lewis', The Monk, is a case in

point. Published in 1796, only two years after Udolpho, the violent novel is

about extremes. It marks a transition in the Gothic novel in its exploration of

the psyche.

As opposed to Radcliffe's female Gothic mode, Lewis exemplifies the

male Gothic. He often preferred to present sensational and lurid scenes

purely for shock value, but he also examines the "the dangerous and violent

excesses of the erotic imagination".75 The suggestive terrors of earlier Gothic

fiction give way to genuine fear, as the exaggerated "paranoid apprehensions

of the Radcliffian heroine become the real crimes of an Ambrosio".76 The

main protagonist is not a trembling naiVe heroine with an overactive

75 Howells, 62.

76 Robert Plazner, "Gothic versus Romantic: A Rejoinder", PMLA 86 (1971): 270.

imagination, but an arrogant and sophisticated anti-hero who has real

interchanges with credible supernatural beings. At the same time, in an

innovation that comes to typify the Gothic novel, Lewis implies that many of

the objects thought to be anomalous are in fact misperceptions of reality,

caused by an agitated mind.

The themes of eroticism and perception added another layer of

complexity to the Gothic novel, but they did not displace traditional Gothic

conventions. Lewis continued to follow Gothic custom in the setting of his

novel, locating his tale in a foreign country and far in the past: Madrid at the

time of the Inquisition. Like earlier Gothic novels, the events took place at "a

safe distance, both temporally and spatially from the English present".76

Readers could read the novel as an escape, secure that it was placed in a

remote world.

The author also knew that he could depend on his readers' response to

the staging of his tale in a Roman Catholic country, "which from the

Protestant perspective was uncivilized, unenlightened, and regressive".77 By

placing the story in a monastery, during the superstitious and irrational time

of the Middle Ages, he implicitly warned his readers that this was a barbarous

tale. Indeed, The Monk includes rape, murder, incest, and incidents of

general depravity. One of the first Gothic novels where an overt strain of

malevolence is evident, it also rails against the injustice and abuse of power

that many saw as endemic in the Catholic religion. Even after the Middle

Ages, Catholicism was still viewed with suspicion, with the 1780 Gordon riots

demonstrating that a strong antipathy persisted.

76 Ellis, 146.

77 Mighall, xvii.

Lewis terrified and titillated his readers, by introducing an erotic

element into his novel, scandalizing the literary and political establishment

in the process. The young author had recently been elected a member of

parliament and many reviewers considered it disgraceful and shameful that a

legislator would write such a salacious book. Under political pressure, Lewis

vigorously bowdlerized later editions of the novel, but there is no denying

the popularity of the original text.

The main focus of the novel is the downward moral spiral of

Ambrosio. Under the tutelage of monks since he was a boy, "The Man of

Holiness" rose to become the Abbot of the most important monastery in

Spain. Self-controlled, self-confident, and self-congratulatory, he retained an

appropriate touch of humility, while a certain "severity in his look and

manner ... inspired universal awe" in the eyes of his audience.79

Seduced by the female demon Matilda, who enters the monastery

disguised as a young male novice, Ambrosio forgets his "vows, his sanctity,

and his fame" for a moment of desire (90). Initially aghast at his loss of self-

control, once his previously repressed desires are unleashed, they appear

uncontrollable. Over the course of the novel, the abbot becomes increasingly

corrupt, committing rape and murder before his sins are discovered by the

officials of the Inquisition. Imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to die at the

stake, Ambrosio conspires with the devil, selling his soul in exchange for

freedom. The fiend keeps his end of the bargain by magically freeing the

former holy man, but he spends the rest of his short corporeal life as a "blind,

maimed, helpless" wretch (442). He escapes the fires of earth, but cannot

avoid those of hell.

79 Matthew Lewis, The Monk (17%), ed. Howard Anderson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 18. All subsequent references to The Monk are parenthetical, with page number.

The Monk contains the usual Gothic tropes, although instead of a

prison or other confined space, the novel features a monastery, "the

quintessential repressive institution" for the "eighteenth-century

Gothicist".79 The requisite underground vaults are included, with the

"various narrow passages" and "damp vapours" reminiscent of Radcliffe

(275). Many of Lewis' landscapes are full of fury, reflecting the violence of the

novel, while his sublime and beautiful locales are subversive. Even the few

apparently pleasant scenes within the pages produce disquieting feelings.

Early in the novel, a solitary and untainted Ambrosio is shown in a

contemplative mood in the abbey gardens, where

the choicest flowers adorned it in the height of luxuriance, and though artfully arranged, seemed only planted by the hand of Nature ....The full Moon ranging through a blue and cloudless sky, shed upon the trees a trembling lustre, and the waters of the fountains sparkled in the silver beam: A gentle breeze breathed the fragrance of Orange-blossoms along the Alley; and the Nightingale poured forth her melodious murmur from the shelter of an artificial wilderness. (50)

Combining visual, olfactory, and auditory senses, Lewis presents a calming

and inviting environment, with the night orb casting its glow over the

glittering water and the pleasant flower blossoms perfuming the air, all to the

accompaniment of bird song. Yet, duplicitous notes within the passage

disrupt the peacefulness. The gardens aspire to look natural, when in fact

they are artificial. The blooms appear to grow unconstrained by careful

cultivation, but the opposite is true. Additionally, in the context of the

perceived austerity of monastery life, it is strange to describe flowers as at the

"height of luxuriance". Beautiful but false, seemingly free but fettered, the

extravagant grounds reflect Ambrosio's hypocrisy. The gardens inspire

79 Ellis, 186.

feelings of incongruous "voluptuous tranquillity" within the soul of the

monk, mirroring his fraudulent mien and divided self (50). A supposedly

virtuous man of holiness, he presents a serene face to the world, masking an

inner sensuality and an excessive indulgence.

The "melodious murmur" of the nightingale is pleasing to the ear, but

it also contains an ominous warning in its allusion to Shakespeare's Romeo

and Juliet. In one scene, just before dawn in the Capulet orchard, Juliet

entreats Romeo to stay, trying to persuade him that the nightingale still sings.

However, he knows that daybreak is not far off, and he "must be gone and

live, or stay and die".80 Traditionally, the lives of lovers are in peril if they

listen to the nightingale, because "the beauty of its song ... makes his hearers

oblivious of the dangers of the day".81 If they remain permanently apart they

remain safe. Although Ambrosio escapes discovery in this instance, the

presence of the nightingale at this early stage of the novel foreshadows the

eventual fate of Ambrosio and Matilda. Continuing to meet in secrecy, they

are doomed to be exposed eventually.

As in the garden of Eden, doubleness and deceit intrude into the

grounds of the monastery, where things are not as they seem. The serpent in

this simulated perfect world is Matilda, disguised as the novice Rosario.

Upon entering the grotto in the garden, Ambrosio greets the youth, gently

chastising him for his apparent melancholy. The poseur's attitude of lament

is designed to appeal to Ambrosio's sense of compassion, for despite all his

faults, he does possess some fine qualities, including solicitude.

80 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene V, line 11.

81 Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant,A Dictionary of Symbols (1969), trans. John Buchanan-Brown (1994) (London: Penguin, 19%), 701.

In fact, the monk was presented as a Faustian hero-villain, although

instead of selling his soul for long life and forbidden knowledge, Ambrosio

compromised his salvation for forbidden desire. However, Lewis suggested

that the monk's crimes were not completely of his own making. Left on the

doorstep of the monastery as a child, he already had the admirable traits of

generosity and compassion. Enterprising, firm and fearless, "had his Youth

been passed in the world", Ambrosio would have developed many other

"brilliant and manly qualities" (236). He grew up in cloistered existence

though, where

He was taught to consider compassion for the errors of Others as a crime of the blackest dye: The noble frankness of his temper was exchanged for servile humility; and in order to break his natural spirit, the Monks terrified his young mind, by placing before him all the horrors with which Superstition could furnish. ...[which] rendered his character timid and apprehensive. (237)

Unlike Walpole's Manfred and Radcliffe's Montoni, whose treacherous

actions were due to greed and ambition, the social influences of the religious

community are implicated in the degeneration and collapse of the abbot's

moral standards. So busy were the monks in dampening Ambrosio's spirit

and destroying his virtues, they allowed his vices to flourish. His natural

good qualities of pity and unselfishness still surfaced at times, but he also

became proud, arrogant, jealous, and vain. The older monks' greatest

educational transgression was their neglect to address the issues of emotion,

desire, and the need for self-control. They failed to provide Ambrosio with

the inner resources and resolve to deal with the strength of his own passions.

Living in monastic seclusion, far removed from secular influences,

Ambrosio "never saw, much less conversed with, the other sex", thus

evading temptation (238). When his resolve was tested in the form of

42

Matilda, he reasoned that there was greater merit in vanquishing temptation,

rather than avoiding it altogether. His pride prevented him from asking for

God's help, while his arrogance convinced him that he could withstand the

inducements of a mere woman, not realizing that she was demon-inspired.

Even so, Ambrosio was not easily seduced by Matilda's considerable charms,

her seeming innocence, or her willingness to risk her life to save his. He was

well aware of the danger she represented and he "struggled with desire and

shuddered when He beheld, how deep was the precipice before him" (78).

He finally succumbs to Matilda's enticements, but even then, Lewis

exculpates him. In the company of a willing, young, and beautiful woman

who adores him, Ambrosio, in the "full vigour of Manhood", yields to the

extreme provocation of Matilda's erotic entreaties (90). Nevertheless, after

the moment passes, he becomes "confused and terrified at his weakness" (224)

He does not fear God's wrath, but he is afraid of being exposed. Denying his

own responsibility, he blames Matilda for betraying him, but once more

displaying her personal allure, she persuades him that the satiation of his

desires is not wrong.

This sequence of events illustrates Ambrosio's divided thought

process-from initial confidence, inner struggle, final capitulation, regret, and

finally, to blame. In Udolpho, the reader only observed Emily's reactions to

abnormal events. However, Lewis allows his readers full access to

Ambrosio's thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The reader hears the

justifications he employs to continue his affair. The monk decides he might

as well abandon himself again to the lustful pleasures of Matilda, who

displays all of her erotic arts to transport him to a state of bliss. "His vows

were already broken", and those who have already transgressed find it easier

to do so again (224).

The pattern of conflict, surrender, dismay, and reproach continues

throughout the novel. Even when he becomes attracted to Antonia, one of

his young female supplicants, "no voluptuous desires rioted in his bosom"

(249). Only over the course of time does his passion become inflamed.

While Matilda satisfies his lust, Antonia's enticing charm lies in her purity,

as "erotic appeal depends on the vision of pristine perfection".83 He is foiled

in several initial attempts to destroy Antonia's virtue, so his demonic

mistress uses all her wiles-seductive entreaty, obsequious flattery, logical

reasoning, and threat-to convince him that the only way he can possess

Antonia is through sorcery.

As she urges him to follow her underground, where she can perform

her incantations in secret, the reader once more becomes aware of Ambrosio's

self-deception. He abjures Matilda, declaring, "I still have sufficient grace to

shudder at Sorcery" (269). Then he vacillates, justifying to himself that as long

as he signs no formal paper renouncing his claim to salvation, he can benefit

from witchcraft. Opening the door of the sepulchre and descending into the

vaults, Ambrosio is left in darkness as Matilda continues further down. In

the middle of labyrinthine passages, his doubts begin to resurface, but he has

no way out.

Gladly he would have returned to the Abbey; But as He had passed through innumerable Caverns and winding passages, the attempt of regaining the Stairs was hopeless. His fate was determined: No possibility of escape presented itself. (273)

In the Gothic novel, labyrinthine subterranean passages were

associated with "fear, confusion and alienation ... darkness, horror and

83Garson, 12.

44

desire".84 The despondency, hopelessness, and lack of escape that Ambrosio

experienced in the underground passages, rendered him passive, like a Gothic

heroine. Physically, Ambrosio wished to go back to the security of the Abbey,

but he could not navigate the vaults alone. Figuratively, he wanted to revert

to his past state of grace, to return to the safety of the Abbey, where he was free

from temptation.

The demonic intervention invoked through Matilda gives

Ambrosio power over Antonia, and just as importantly, provides him with

the ability to escape undetected afterwards. All misgivings gone, he is led out

of the vaults. Usually, after escaping from such depths, Gothic heroes,

heroines, and readers "manage to return with an elevated sense of identity to

the solid realities of justice, morality and social order", but this is not the path

Ambrosio chooses.85 He knows right from wrong and can distinguish

between immoral and moral actions, but all conscience flees from him. Even

as he recognizes that his attempts upon Antonia are "highly criminal", an

excess of passion drives him (257). He ultimately resorts to murder in his bid

to possess her, smothering to death her suspicious mother.

Descending down to the vaults again, Antonia is dead to the world of

civility and order. In complete control of her fate, the monk resolves to

destroy her honor. However, "scarcely has he succeeded in his design, than

he shuddered at himself and the means by which it was effected" (384). The

pattern of regret and blame resurfaces, this time accompanied by a sense of

shame and confusion. In a genuine state of remorse and contrition, he

"would have given worlds, had He possessed them, to restore to her that

84 Botting, 81.

85 Botting, 8.

innocence", but hypocritically, he refuses to allow her to threaten what he

still possesses: his good reputation (386). In a final desperate attempt to

ensure her permanent silence and effect his escape, he fatally stabs her.

Lewis created a threatening atmosphere by relying on his readers'

response "to the gloomy horror of echoing vaults and funeral trappings".85

The real horror was that in an area inhabited by death and dissolution,

Ambrosio embarked upon a course which led to something much worse than

his physical demise: the loss of his soul.

When Ambrosio's crimes are discovered, he is led away to the prisons

of the Inquisition to be tortured. The physical details of his external pain are

described precisely in order to emphasize the extent of his internal suffering.

His "dislocated limbs, the nails tom from his hand and feet, and his fingers

mashed and broken by the pressure of the screws", are easier for him to bear

than his extreme inner torment (425).

Misery alternates with anger. Persuaded that he can never be saved,

he raged in his cell, uttering blasphemies and curses. His dreams reflected his

fury, as, in his sleep, he dwelled in Gothic "sulphurous realms", attended by

various demons "who drove him through a variety of tortures" (426). Yet,

even as he despaired of ever reaching heaven, he stood firm against the

arguments and entreaties of a dazzling Matilda, and refused to follow her lead

and sell his soul to Satan in exchange for freedom. She left him a book of

spells, which Ambrosio later picked up, "but immediately threw it from him

in horror" (432). Still divided, he summoned the devil, but resisted him,

affirming, "I will not give up my hope of being one day pardoned. ... Begone"

(434-5). Again, as he heard the midnight bell begin to toll, signaling the time

85 Howells, 73.

for him to be led to the stake, he called back Lucifer for the last time and

renounced all claim to salvation.

The demon transports him to the precipice of a mountain. A fierce

location, its wildness reflects Ambrosio's disordered state of mind. One

moment he is suffering terribly in the prisons of the Inquisition, and then, at

the last minute, he is saved from a horrible death. However, the

surrounding landscape does nothing to calm his nerves and the high price he

has paid for his freedom weighs heavily on his mind. At this height:

By the gloomy Caverns and steep rocks, rising above each other, and dividing the passing clouds, solitary clutches of Trees scattered here and there, among whose thick-twined branches the wind of night sighed hoarsely and mournfully; the shrill cry of mountain Eagles, who had built their nests among these lonely Desarts; the stunning roar of torrents, as swelled by late rains they rushed violently down tremendous precipices. (439)

A savage but sublime picture of nature, the mountain stretches upwards

toward infinity, but in a subversion of the sublime, the elevated altitude is

not associated with heaven. The scene may have been created by God, but the

devil is in control. In his care the sublime is not a conduit to the divine, as

Burke affirms, but a connection to the eternity of hell. The scattering of trees

clinging to survival on the mountain is indicative of the tenuous nature of

all life, while the magnificent eagles represent the majesty and power that the

monk has ceded to Satan. If these symbols are not enough to frighten

Ambrosio, the striking invasion of sound s-the moans of the night wind, the

piercing calls of the eagles, and the striking clamor of the swollen river as it

falls down the mountain-are sufficient in themselves "to overpower the

soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror".87

87 Burke, 75.

47

In stark, unfamiliar surroundings, accosted by loud noises, Ambrosio

does not feel the awe, terror, and wonder generated by the sublime, but the

horror which freezes the soul and blocks out every other emotion. All alone

and alienated from society, family, and God, Ambrosio "sank upon his knees,

and raised his hands towards heaven", but such supplication comes too late

(441). The demon throws him from the mountain.

The height that Ambrosio is dropped from echoes his fall from grace.

However, the discomfort caused by the blazing rays of the sun and the pain of

his broken and dislocated limbs are minimal, when compared to the agonies

that he will endure in hell. The insects drinking the blood flowing from his

wounds inflict upon him the "most exquisite and insupportable" tortures, so

the paralyzed Ambrosio can only imagine how much more intolerable his

suffering will be after his death (442). In an inversion of the creation, he

endures six days of severe pain, all the while realizing that death will bring

him greater torment.

In addition, pointing clearly to the Promethean myth, "the Eagles of

the rock tore his flesh piecemeal, and dug out his eye-balls with their crooked

beaks (442). Influenced by Goethe, in the late eighteenth-century the Titan

was seen as a positive symbol of man's ambition and his rebellion against the

constraints of society and life.88 Ambrosio revolted against religious

repression, successfully freeing himself from the rules of society for a brief

amount of time. However, even Prometheus' admirable qualities did not

prevent him from being condemned to eternal torment for his presumption.

The same punishment applied to Ambrosio, not only for assuming that he

88 In The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 820.

could use his position of power to satisfy his lust without fear of discovery,

but also for believing that, once caught, forgiveness was still possible.

Lewis cannot fully commit to the image of Ambrosio as a tragic anti-

hero. . His offenses are even more corrupt and terrifying than he thought. In

Gothic fiction, terror "depends on things not being what they seem", and

although unknown to Ambrosio at the time, his lust compelled him to

commit matricide and incest.88 He and Antonia had the same mother, and by

raping the young woman, he broke one of the most sacred religious, moral,

and social taboos. His desire for her was forbidden not only because she was

an innocent supplicant, but because she was also his sister. Incest leads to a

"dark mixture of unnamable things".89

Just as institutional repression-like that perceived to be imposed by

the Catholic church-leads to an abuse of power, so are Ambrosio's "sexual

crimes caused by distortion of natural drives".90 His passions are forced

down and repressed, and accordingly, he physically descends to commit an act

of violence. His "sexual fantasy becomes truly Gothic, with forbidden desire

driven underground"91 into the domain of death, with funeral trappings all

around.

Nevertheless, there is a limit to how far society or institutions can be

held responsible for Ambrosio's transgression. He consorted with Matilda

and allowed her to call up supernatural powers on his behalf, while he

committed murder and rape, all in order to satiate his lust. His voracious

88 Botting, 170.

89 Girard, 75.

90 Elizabeth MacAndrew, The Gothic Tradition in Fiction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 88.

91 Howells, 73.

sexual appetite raises a number of questions. What if unbidden inner desires

cannot be controlled? What if the self can never be satisfied? The nineteen

year old author stops short of answering these questions, perhaps realizing

that erotic desire and excess passion hold "dangers more real than can be

registered by a pleasurable shudder".93

The failure of resolution within The Monk may indicate that the

author did not want to deal with difficult moral issues. In most cases, Lewis

rejected "emotional complexity for the shock value of dramatic scenarios".94

In addition, by using violent nightmare imagery, utilizing plausible

supernatural beings, and allowing Ambrosio to incur damnation by the

hands of a vengeful devil, he came into conflict with "the emerging concept

of novelistic realism: verisimilitude will not immediately admit of the

magical appearance of superhuman forms".95 Nevertheless, the Gothic

alludes to possibilities; to a "presence in the world of forces which cannot be

accounted for by the daylight self and the self-sufficient mind.96 By its very

nature, a Gothic novel always lacks sufficient explanations at the conclusion,

because "if the gothic can be explained it is no longer gothic".97

93 Howard Anderson, "Introduction" to The Monk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), xvii.

94 Howells, 66.

95 George Haggerty, Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989), 3.

96 Peter Brooks, "Virtue and Terror: The Monk", ELH 40 (1973): 249; quoted in Ronald Schleifer, 'The Trap of the Imagination: The Gothic Tradition, Fiction, and The Turn of the Screw7", Criticism 22 (1980): 298.

97 Kincaid, 3.

Published in 1820, Melmoth the Wanderer is the last work of the

literary Gothic period. The author, Charles Maturin, merges conventional

Gothic images and tropes with the suggestive terrors of Radcliffe, and fuses

the intense horrors of Lewis with his own "profound psychological insight

into torture and suffering".97 In doing so, he created a Gothic novel that is

widely considered to be "the highest artistic achievement of the genre".98

Maturin delves into the darker impulses of man, exploring the

psychological complexity of the inner psyche, especially the divided self. He

develops the theme of alienation that Lewis introduced in his presentation of

Ambrosio, but concentrates on the misery that accompanies the outcast. The

Promethean connection between the expelled member of society and the

forsaken god is intensified in Melmoth, as Maturin focuses on the individual.

A quintessential example of the complexity and mystery of Gothic

narratives, the novel consists of tales nested one within another, with each

successive story related in the first-person by a different character. Despite the

multiple voices, the narratives are connected by similar themes and plots,

each underscoring in different ways the cruelty of unjust authoritarian

systems, particularly religious and social institutions.

Melmoth's own story gradually appears through the relation of all the

tales. In each story, Melmoth-the Faustian title character who has sold his

soul to Satan in exchange for long life and forbidden knowledge-appears to

distressed individuals suffering from various acts of injustice, offering them

instant relief if they will change places with him and take over his infernal

deal. He presents this option to Stanton, a sane man imprisoned in a lunatic

97 Axton, xiv.

98 Axton, xviii.

asylum, but he prefers to gradually descend into true insanity than spend an

eternity in hell. Moncada, confined in the prisons of the Inquisition, and

Wahlberg, who sees his children dying of starvation, are also tempted, but

they both decline his proposal with horror. As Melmoth becomes

increasingly desperate to relieve himself of his burden, the plights of the

characters he bargains with become more appalling, leading to an escalating

stream of torments.

The novel is originally set in Ireland in the year of 1816, when John

Melmoth, a distant relative of the title character, temporally quits his studies

in England in order to attend to his dying uncle. On his deathbed, the old

man abjures him to burn an ancient manuscript in his study, but his request

is not honoured. Upon inheriting all of his uncle's money and property, the

young man is seized by a wild and awful curiosity about his antecedent-John

Melmoth the Traveler-so he reads the yellowing pages he was advised to

destroy. Dated 1676, the tale is the account of an Englishman named Stanton,

who describes his relentless quest to find and bring to justice the villainous

Melmoth.

In the story, Stanton related how he was tricked into imprisonment in

Bedlam. Confined to a cell, he was surrounded by the cries and raving of

others. Fastidious at first, after a period of time spent in the madhouse, he

"passed half the day in bed ... declined shaving or changing his linens".100 At

this low point, Melmoth appeared magically in the man's cell and warned

him that his continuing mental deterioration would soon cause him to "echo

the scream of every delirious wretch that harbours near you", with his

condition worsening until "all humanity will be extinguished in you" (42).

100 Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961), 41. All subsequent references to MeImoth are parenthetical, with page number.

Rejecting his offer of freedom in exchange for his soul, Stanton was

eventually released from the madhouse with his sanity intact and became

intent on tracking down his tempter. Ironically, his pursuit of Melmoth was

so "incessant and indefatigable,-that it became a species of madness" in itself

(44).

The young Melmoth reads the story of Stanton, but the remaining

narratives are related by Moncada, the sole survivor of a shipwreck that

improbably took place near the coast of Melmoth's house. Recovering at the

home of the former student, the stories Moncada tells to his host are from

other manuscripts that he has been forced to copy in the past, resulting in a

multiplicity of voices and wide-ranging dates of composition, with some of

the tales containing references to the Spanish Inquisition of 1668.

The seafaring Spaniard's accounts of tortures are even more

lamentable than Stanton's. As the illegitimate son of a noble family, he is

sent to a monastery, while the second son is groomed as the true heir.

Subsequently renouncing his vows, he becomes imprisoned in a vault on the

charge of heresy. He and his cell-mate manage to escape from their cell, and

as his companion leads him through subterranean passages, the former

novice monk imagines all the dreadful things that could happen.

In an allusion to The Monk, Moncade has "heard stories of infernal

beings who deluded monks ... seduced them into the vaults of the convent,

and then proposed conditions which it is almost horrible to relate" (148-9).

As he and his guide traverse the path, his mind is filled with gruesome and

macabre Gothic images. In a corruption of the Eucharist,

I thought of being forced to witness the unnatural reels of a diabolical feast,-of seeing the rotting flesh distributed,-of drinking the dead corrupted blood,-of hearing the anthems of fends howled in insults (149).

Temporarily diverted from imaginary supernatural horrors, Moncada

confronts the reality of attempting to squeeze through a small underground

opening. Crawling through the narrow route, the guide recalls a story about a

traveler who got stuck in a passage when exploring the pyramids of Egypt.

Unable to more either way, his trapped companions discussed cutting off his

limbs so they could pass. Hearing this, the explorer contracted in agony and

was able to be dragged back, giving the others room to advance. In the process

though, he was suffocated to death. After the relation of this horrific account,

Moncada and his guide are then forced to wait in the dark confinement of the

vaults until they can effect their own escape.

Their flight is ultimately thwarted and Moncada is thrown into the

prisons of the Inquisition. The terrible tales he has heard and the scenes he

has imagined appear insignificant when compared to the prospect of being

burnt at the stake. He dreams of how

my feet were scorched to a cinder,—my muscles cracked, my blood and marrow hissed, my flesh consumed like shrinking leather, the bones of my leg hung two black withering and moving sticks in the ascending blaze;—it ascended, caught my hair,—I was crowned with fire,—my head was a ball of molten metal, my eyes flashed and melted in their sockets;—I opened my mouth, it drank fire (182).

Awakened by his own screams, he sees Melmoth in his cells and impulsively

implores him to save him, but when the tempter lays down the conditions,

even the Gothic images of macabre and gruesome suffering cannot compel

him to accept.

The evocative physical details of the burning are "so precise in order

for the reader to understand more fully what is happening to Moncada

54

psychologically".100 Tortured and then condemned as a heretic, the

imaginary fires represent not only the terrible means of his own death, but

also serve as the symbol of hell. Enduring concentrated physical pain, his

confusion and agony is reflected in his nightmare. Under extreme duress, it

is uncertain whether his mind can distinguish between reality and unreality.

His sense of perception is flawed, so the subsequent appearance of Melmoth

to him may only be a nightmare or fantasy caused by his agitated mind.

Maturin differs from Lewis in his use of macabre, fierce and

disturbing images. Rather than presenting lurid pictures for their shock

value, he utilizes Gothic spectacle as a way of grappling with psychological

issues. Depicting the misery of Melmoth's prospective victims, Maturin

analyzes the deterioration of the mind through intense agony and strain,

acknowledging "that many of the objects thought to be supernatural are

nothing more than projections of the disturbed mind of the perceivers".101

Although Melmoth's seemingly opportunistic appearances may be

imaginary, he is presented in the novel as a real figure. As a Gothic villain,

his possesses satanic characteristics, but he is presented as a "spectral double of

the human" who is attempting to disavow his demonic role.102 Like Faust,

he possesses forbidden knowledge and has passed one hundred years on the

earth "without a hair on his head changed, or a muscle in his frame

contracted" (20). While his special powers raise him above his fellow human

beings, they also cut him off "from their saving communion".103

100 Joseph Wisenfarth, "Introduction" to Gothic Manners and the Classic English N ovel (Madison: Univesity of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 11.

101 Hennessy, 26.

102 Botting, 107.

103 Ringe, 391.

In a reflection of the ambivalence that remains a feature of the Gothic,

later villains like Melmoth are treated in a more sympathetic manner.

Influenced by the age in which it was written, Maturin's anti-hero possesses

qualities usually associated with tortured Romantic characters. Similar to

Coleridge's ancient mariner, or Byron's Manfred, Melmoth is an isolated

individual on an elusive quest. A rebel and non-conformist, he is linked to

Prometheus.

As a Promethean figure, Melmoth "is more a psychological projection

than realistic representation, for he personifies the moral rebellion of his

times" against restrictive rules.104 However, while Lewis' text questions the

role of society in shaping Ambrosio's extreme behavior, Maturin is reluctant

to assign blame. The stifling authoritarian tradition creates, and then

constrains Melmoth, but he also makes a conscious decision to sell his soul.

There is a moral ambiguity in his character, which leads to a confusion of

purpose within the novel.

There are no answers or explanations to be found in the ambiguous

and inconclusive endings of The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. This

confusion of purpose is the point, for there are no patent answers to the

questions that the authors are posing. Unlike earlier Gothic novels, there is

no moral message or mystery to explain, but a complicated "chain of events

without unity or meaning", indicative of the chaotic and fragmented nature

of human life.105 Through Gothic conventions, authors such as Lewis and

Melmoth can allude to the human predicament and the cosmic condition,

and alert us towards that mysterious other which is real, but evades language.

104 Anderson, x.

105 Botting, 108.

On the other hand, many authors of Gothic fiction merely followed a

formula, using tired cliches and conventions. Austen's parody of the

formulaic Gothic novel, Northanger Abbey, foreshadowed the death of the

Gothic literary genre.106 Sold in 1803, it appeared posthumously in 1818,

and mocked the stock Gothic tropes and images that easily lent themselves to

parody and irony. The inherent duplicitness of parody and the doubleness of

irony exploit the subversive potential of language.

Northanger Abbey is set in England, where the "mannered social order

... precludes Gothic horrors".107 The plot features Catherine Morland, the

daughter of a wealthy clergyman. Spending a season in Bath with friends,

she meets Henry Tilney, and both she and her confidant, Isabella, fall in love

with him. They are invited to the medieval estate of the Tilneys, Northanger

Abbey. Seduced by Radcliffian tales, Catherine expects the Abbey to be a

Gothic structure dating back to the Restoration era, with a "portion of the

ancient building still making a part of the present dwelling", while the rest

remains in ruins (142). She is disappointed to find the Tilney's dwelling large

and comfortable, with light streaming in from glass windows. She had hoped

to find heavy stone work, dim recesses, and antique stained-glass windows

covered in cobwebs.

Both Catherine and Isabella are assiduous readers of delightfully

"horrid" Gothic novels with titles such as The Castle of Wolfenbach,

Mysterious Warnings and Necromancer of the Black Forest. Unduly

influenced by these tales of terror and horror and undeterred by the fact that

the Tilneys do not live in a Gothic castle, Catherine constructs a Gothic

106 Ed. Drabble, Oxford Companion, 729.

107 Wiesenfarth, "Intro.", 3.

fantasy around the older man. She suspects him of murdering his wife,

while a document that she finds written in a foreign language appears equally

menacing.

Due to her flawed perception, Catherine has exaggerated things out of

all proportion. Mortified when her suspicions are exposed and proven false,

she learns that the mysterious paper is only an old laundry list. She earns

the disapproval of General Tilney, Henry's father, and further falls out of his

favour when he is mistakenly informed that her parents have little money.

After she departs from the estate, Henry ignores his father's instruction to

have nothing more to do with her and follows her home, where he proposes.

She accepts, and the older Tilney gives his consent to the marriage when he

discovers that her family is actually wealthy.

Catherine is the de facto heroine of the novel, although Austen

ironically notes that no one "would have supposed her" to be so.109 The role

of male scoundrel falls to General Tilney, while Henry Tilney is the hero.

However, General Tilney is not a murderer and the young Henry is a

pusillanimous man who declares that his perusal of Radcliffe's The Mysteries

of Udolpho had his "hair standing on end the whole time" (40).

The plot is a subversive mockery of the typical Gothic novel.

Catherine is so involved in imaginary crimes and mysteries that she fails to

notice Isabella's self-interest, hypocrisy, and cowardice, all in evidence when

she asks Catherine to intercede for her with Henry Tilney. The real evil of

the educated middle-class has nothing to do with murder or secret

109 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, in The Novels of Jane Austen (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1948), 40. Vol. 5. All subsequent references to Northanger Abbey will be parenthetical.

documents, but is social in nature, where "dishonesty, greed, affectation and

vanity" are the prevailing crimes.109

With the assistance of Austen, subversion became a feature of Gothic

fiction. The Gothic novel still relied on the traditional tropes that Walpole

introduced, including prisons, chains, strange apparitions, and references to

the supernatural. However, in the half-century that separated The Castle of

Otranto and M elm oth , many more elements were added to the Gothic novel.

In the evolution of the genre, Radcliffe was primarily responsible for

establishing the technique of allying mood with scenery, adding emotive

power to the basic gothic vocabulary. Concomitantly, sublime landscapes

also came to be associated with Gothic literature.

As The Monk shows, near the end of the eighteenth-century, the

Gothic novel became more violent and macabre. The brooding atmospheres

and the typical images of death remained, but authors began to tentatively

move towards an exploration of mental states. Anti-heroes replaced stock

villains and the repressive medieval values of modern society were

implicated as a source of perversion. Lewis alluded to incorporeal demonic

realities and strengthened the illusion with his use of graphic picture.

Unlike his predecessor, Maturin did not exploit explicit gruesome scenes for

their sensational effects; instead he concentrates on how perception and

psychological states can produce and magnify imaginary horrors.

The Gothic genre began to weaken in popularity in the early

nineteenth-century and the formally defined literary Gothic period ended

with the 1820 publication of Melmoth. "Although repetition and the

generally poor quality of writing led to the decline of the Gothic genre, a

109 Paul Lewis, 316.

59

contributing factor was the assimilation of many Gothic tenets into

Romanticism".111 Gothic features such as desire, mystery, and awe were

easily absorbed into the Romantic movement, and persisted into the

Victorian era.

VICTORIAN BELIEF AND THE PROTEAN GOTHIC

The Gothic novel, full of mystery and emotion, gave late eighteenth-

century readers a respite from the rationalism of the Enlightenment,

providing a welcome, albeit temporary, escape. Fifty years later, many

Victorians were similarly looking for a release from the rigorous scientific

methods employed by men such as Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin.

The hypotheses of Lyell and Darwin were among the most influential

scientific theories that questioned the belief in divine creation. In Principles

of Geology (1830-33), Lyell provided a geological account of the earth, claiming

that it was millions of years older than the book of Genesis suggested and

casting serious doubt on the credibility of the Old Testament as true history.

Similarly, Darwin's Origin of the Species (1859) challenged the idea that

Adam and Eve were created by God. Instead he argued that there was a

continuous struggle for existence and that those creatures who had more

advantageous traits were more likely to survive and pass on these beneficial

characteristics. Therefore, the survival of the fittest was ensured by natural

selection. In a Darwinian universe, man was the highest form of beast, not

because of divine providence, but because he was furthest along in the race

for survival. Ultimately he remained subject to the same impulses as any

111 Bayer-Berenbaum, 20.

other living being: the assuaging of hunger and thirst, the search for shelter,

and the drive for reproduction, among others.

Lyell and Darwin alone did not destroy the authority of the Christian

church. The rationalism of the Enlightenment, with its central belief in

human reason, had already partially displaced organized religion as the

decisive and authoritative mode of elucidating the ways of the universe. Yet,

many traditional beliefs and establishments were also changing. The

Industrial Revolution transformed the economic climate, as millions of

laborers flowed into urban areas in search of work. Mechanization vastly

increased the production of goods, as well as the speed of travel and

communication. The political landscape slowly shifted, as the divisive

Reform Bills of 1828 and 1867 gave more than a million men the right to

vote, while 1884 saw the enfranchisement of approximately two million

more male agricultural laborers. Literacy increased among the middle classes

and as a wealth of scientific knowledge became available, the tenuous validity

of the Bible and Christianity as a whole weakened even more. Many

reasoning people already had doubts and misgivings about the veracity of the

Judeo-Christian version of the world and the findings of science merely

confirmed their skepticism.

For many Victorians, the problem with religion was Christian

theology. Hardy deplored the "terrible dogmatic ecclesiasticism-Christianity

so-called ... a dogma with which the real teaching of Christ has hardly

anything in common".111 Carlyle asserted that the major need of the age was

to dismiss the antiquated rules of medieval Christianity, to cast off what he

111 Thomas Hardy, letter to Edward Clodd, Jan. 17,1897, in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy II: 1893-1901, eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978), 143. 7 vols. Title of first reference subsequently referred to as CL H.

called "Hebrew old-clothes".112 William Mallock, who remained a believer

of the Catholic church, promoted the idea of a kind gentle religion and

contended that Christianity was "not a body of impossible dogma, but simply

a life of piety and virtue".113 He further suggested that without religion man

lost any sense of imagination and transcendence.

As the statesman and poet Edward Lytton lamented:

We live in an age of visible transition-an age of disquietude anddoubt... to me such epochs appear ... the times of greatest unhappinessto our species.114

Victorians lived in an age where old traditional beliefs, institutions,

and ideals were disappearing and the new emerging values were often

confusing or incomplete. The discoveries of Lyell and Darwin were

destructive to the social fabric, not only because of the fear of total chaos and

degeneration, but because it destroyed all moral, religious, and historical

absolutes, and took much of the mystery and poetry out of life. The

disintegration of established, time-honored tenets, combined with religious

doubt and the weakening power and status of the clergy, meant individuals

had no one to depend upon but themselves. They had to struggle alone with

questions: does man have an innate morality or is it God-given, does he have

free will, or is he simply a product of evolution, is there a god or gods, is there

a force of good and evil, or does heaven and hell exist? If they believed in

the Christian faith, they had to choose between Catholicism-a more

112 Carlyle, "Shooting Niagara: And After?" VI, in Prose of the Victorian Period, ed. William E. Buckler ( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 172.

113 William Hurrell Mallock, The New Republic, or Culture, Faith and Philosophy in and English Country House (1877) (Rosemary Library: London, n.d.), 227.

114 Lytton, England and the English (1833) (London: n.p., 1874), 284; qtd. in Walter Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 65. I am indebted to Walter Houghton for much of the background information relating to thereligious concerns of the Victorians.

acceptable option following the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829-or the

Church of England, and then decide on high or low church. These

complexities were not only distressing, they also showed that man's reason

could prove erroneous or even powerless, so "men were glad enough, in

many cases, to exchange their vaunted private judgment for a divine

teacher".116 This readiness to shed religious responsibility and pass it to some

external agency was one reason why both the Church of England and the

Roman Catholic church paradoxically increased their numbers during the

middle decades of the nineteenth -century. The Victorians' "need for faith

was stronger than that of their forebears, simply because the grounds of faith

now had become so elusive."117

However, where was an individual to look if he could find no

satisfaction in the Godhead? It was a frightening and confusing process for

most, although George Eliot was relieved to discard her Evangelical faith and

replace it with a different set of beliefs, based on human kindness. However,

unlike Eliot, Hardy was not necessarily relieved, but ambivalent about his

decision to reject Christianity. He abhorred Christian theology and "the

medieval concepts [that] are the groundwork of modem middle-class

respectability".118 However, he respected the general sense of religion, "as

being expressive of nobler feelings towards humanity and emotional

goodness and greatness".119 In response to a surreptitious interviewer's

question in 1905, he answered:

116 Houghton, 200.

117 Richard Altick, Victorian People and Ideas (New York: Norton, 1973), 236.

118 Joseph Wiesenfarth, "Jude the Obscure: Gothic Manners in Western Civilization", in Gothic Manners and the Classic English Novel (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 1988), 148.

119 Thomas Hardy, L Y, 121.

63

Don't suppose for a moment... that I am opposed to the Christian religion. I often wish I had lived in the Middle Ages, when the Church was supreme and unquestioned .... before doubts had arisen .... Christianity appeals very powerfully both to my emotional and artistic faculties.120

Nevertheless, he admitted that "intellect cannot be stifled, and we cannot

ignore the revelations of geology and history", even if, "what we gain by

science is, after all, sadness".121 Hardy wanted to be re-enchanted, to regain a

sense that there was some force controlling the world, a deeper reality. He

found a medium of faith in the Gothic, and he expressed that belief in his

writings.

Hardy is not alone in promoting the Gothic. It is pervasive in

Victorian fiction, although there is not "one undifferentiated Gothic

nineteenth century, homogenous from beginning to end".122 The Bronte

sisters' novels show distinct Gothic influences. The dark atmosphere of

Emily's Wuthering Heights (1847) blends with and augments its suggestive

supernaturalism. Charlotte's ViUette (1853) displays the anti-Catholic trend

prevalent in late eighteenth-century Gothic fiction, while Jane Eyre (1847)

blurs nightmare and dream, presenting the fears and actualities of

imprisonment, insanity, and bigamy, all underpinned by a strong erotic

undercurrent. Dickens infuses much of his fiction with grotesque images

120 W. Smithland, "Thomas Hardy: A Talk With the Wessex Novelist at Casterbridge", The Daily Chronicle 8 Feb. 1905:4.

121 Smithland, 4; and T. Hardy, CL IE, letter to Edward Clodd, 27 Feb. 1902,5.

122 Daniel Pick, " Terrors of the N ight': Dracula and 'Degeneration' in the Late Nineteenth Century", Critical Quarterly 30.4 (1988): 74.

and an atmosphere of gloom, strengthened by his settings of prisons and

dismal houses. In a modification of the characteristic Gothic theme

concerning the inability of man to escape his past, he emphasized individuals

who chose to live in the past, best exemplified by Miss Havisham in Great

Expectations. As the modern city replaced the old castles and mansions as the

focus of terror, Elizabeth Gaskell explored the dark side of urban life,

particularly the daily struggle to keep body and soul together in the mills.

Gaskell's ghost stories, such as "The Old Nurse's Story" (1852), and George

Eliot's 'The Lifted Veil" (1859) are more similar to eighteenth-century Gothic

fiction in their dependence on supernatural explanations, as are Sheridan Le

Fanu's tales of terror.

Victorian Gothic fiction expanded to include more macabre and

violent episodes, with an additional emphasis on psychological states and the

sense of perception. Reality was blurred, as "the social bearing[s] in which a

sense of reality is secured" were "presented in the threatening shapes of

increasingly dehumanized environments, machine doubles and violent,

psychic fragmentation."122 Cities and urban locations became the

nineteenth-century loci of terror, rather than the dark forests and

underground crypts of the conventional Gothic. In the late nineteenth-

century, the familiar figures of doppelgangers, alter-egos, and vampires re-

emerged, along with the grotesque, reflecting a major Victorian anxiety and

concern with dualities. Passion combated reason, civilization opposed

wilderness, and the natural confronted the unnatural.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) is a metaphor for

the individual's divided self and the continual internal struggle between

122 Botting, 157.

65

reason and passion, good and evil. The physical form of the human

grotesque is exposed, as it is in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Oscar

Wilde's novel brings up the concept of a possessed body, governed by elusive

forces outside the realm of human knowledge. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897)

is a story of the supernatural, highlighting the difference between the natural

and unnatural. Merging dream with nightmare, it also introduces an erotic

subtext.

Sexuality was also a major source of conflict for the Victorians. They

were concerned about the difference between male and female, human and

nonhuman. Victorian Gothic novels reflected "the fears, anxieties, and

terrors that pervade[d] such male-female interactions" in the nineteenth-

century .124 As the belief in a benevolent God waned, the thought of

unnatural, depraved and nonhuman influences became more frightening. If

there was no powerful good force in the world, divine or not, how could man

counteract bad or aberrant ideas and deviant behavior?125 One answer was to

stamp out and obliterate the subversive ideas that clashed with society's

morals; to state that those who had such thoughts were "not only evil but

unnatural: she/he/it has no right to exist at all".126 However, the repressive

morality that distinguished between good and evil by setting up "taboos and

prohibitions", also produced "desires that can only be manifested secretly".127

Thus, there is a profound tension in many Victorian Gothic novels.

124Norma Goldstein, "Thomas Hardy's Victorian Gothic: Reassessing Hardy's Fiction", Ph.D. diss., University of Rhode Island, 1990,133-4.

125 Meg Moring, "The Dark Glass: Mirroring and Sacrifice on Shakespeare's Othello and Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles", Conference of College Teachers of English Studies 56 (1991):15; and Kathleen Spencer, "Purity and Danger: Dracula, the Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis", English Literary History 59 (Spring 1992): 203.

126 Spencer, 208.

127 Botting, 142.

66

Wolfreys suggests that there is a distinct Victorian Gothic which

manifests itself as "both a subversive force and a mechanism for social

critique".128 These dual impulses manifest themselves in Hardy's fiction, as

he continually subverts the Gothic tradition and confounds his readers'

expectations. In his earlier novels, he implicitly criticizes authoritarian

institutions, while in his later novels, he directly rails against the tyranny of

social laws. Wilt insists that "as a social impulse", the Gothic advocates riot,

not reform,129 and as Hardy's vision changes, disorder and confusion begin to

reign in the pages of his books.

Hardy and other Victorian writers had "not inherited a culturally

shared belief system" and thus were forced to use prose and poetry "as places

to work out their beliefs".130 Hardy explores the Gothic to assess its suitability

as a faith to fill the spiritual vacancy created by a loss of belief in a benevolent

God. By adopting a Gothic premise, he was able to make allusions to a higher

power and expand his imagination and sense of reality. He found its gestures

to possible truth, and the credence of real belief, attractive. At the same time,

he found that traditional and nineteenth-century interpretations of Gothic

forms and figures enabled him to overturn and subvert assumptions, beliefs,

and authoritarian institutions. Although it was not a conscious desire, like

Arnold and Carlyle, Hardy was moving towards a place where literature itself

replaces religion as a place where we look for possibilities that verge on truth,

however unpalatable these truths may be.

128 Wolfreys, "Preface", xvi.

129 Wilt, 46.

130 Gerald Graff and Giles Gunn, "Cultural Criticism", chap. in Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies, Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn, eds. (New York: Modem Language Association of America,1992), 427.

CHAPTER TWO

DESPERATE REMEDIES: HARDY'S MOSTGOTHIC NOVEL

Desperate Remedies was Hardy's first published book, although it was

actually the second one he wrote. His first novel, entitled The Poor Man and

the Lady , was refused by Alexander Macmillan, but the publisher encouraged

him to continue with his writing, noting "if this is your first book I think you

ought to go on".130 Never printed, the manuscript of this initial offering was

eventually destroyed.

Hardy's first published novel, Desperate Remedies, was released in

three-volume form in 1871. His most Gothic novel, it contained many

conventions typical of the Gothic genre: confused identities, mysterious

actions, suggestively supernatural terrors, and incredible coincidences.

130 Alexander Macmillan, letter to T. Hardy, Oct. Aug. 10,1868 in Dorchester County Museum; qtd. in Millgate, Biography, 110.

Instead of being set in the foreign lands favoured by Radcliffe, the principal

action took place in and around an old manor-house located on the fictional

Knapwater Estate in the south of England. As common in late eighteenth-

century Gothic fiction, the plot portrayed an innocent maiden menaced by a

purportedly villainous rake and a "lonely, embittered, and haughty" woman

of nearly fifty (6-1, 63).

Hardy deliberately invokes the Gothic tradition in Desperate Remedies,

as his de facto heroine, Cytherea, asks the coachman if "horrid stories" are

told about the old manor house on the Knapwater estate where she has been

offered employment.132 He answers in an offhand and casual manner that

"Tis jest the house for a nice ghastly hair-on-end story ... Perhaps it will have

one some day'" (5-1, 48). The Gothic tradition is introduced and then

skeptically overturned. Hardy pokes fun at the conventional dismal and

abandoned old mansions that are so often the province of Gothic writers.

However, the outbuilding of the old manor house proves to hide, and

literally hold, a grisly secret, thus fulfilling the coachman's supposition.

While promoting the authentic Gothic provenance of Desperate Remedies;

Hardy parodies its features at the same time, revealing the artificially and

artifice of the Gothic genre. This enables him to set a tone of uncertainty and

ambiguity that resonates throughout the novel.

Alongside the shifting pattern of vacillation, the author makes a

largely unsuccessful attempt to merge Gothic themes with images. He

introduces many traditional Gothic themes, such as the issues of the

inescapable past and the battle of virtue versus villainy, but he also addresses

132 Thomas Hardy, Desperate Remedies (1871) with an introduction by C.J.P. Beatty (London: Macmillan 'New Wessex', 1975, reprint 1986), 5-1,48. All subsequent references to Desperate Remedies will be parenthetical, with the chapter, sub-chapter, and page number.

the Victorian Gothic concerns about sexuality and the difference between the

natural and the unnatural. Richard Taylor notes that Cytherea "confounds

the traditionally simple and virtually asexual role of the nai ve young

heroine".133 When the storm forces Cytherea to take refuge in Manston's

manor-house, the tumultuous and sublime weather provokes the incipient

stirrings of desire-a feeling that the virtuous Radcliffian heroine never

experiences.

D. H, Lawrence considers Manston to be Hardy's "blackest villain",

but Manston is not the standard stock villain of melodrama because he

possesses human feelings and emotions.134 His passionate feelings for

Cytherea are genuine, but excessive, and it is this immoderation that prompts

him to take extreme actions. When his prime objective of securing Cytherea

is threatened by the reappearance of his wife, he takes steps to prevent this.

She symbolizes his former life-a life that he must conceal-and her intrusion

into the present is unexpected. Manston realizes that her very existence will

nullify any chance of marriage. Erroneously, he believes that if he disposes of

his wife-the physical evidence of the past-then the past itself will also be

erased and he can proceed with his plans. He fails to understand that the past

continually encroaches upon the present and can never be obliterated.

Alongside traditional Gothic themes, Hardy uses late eighteenth and

early nineteenth-century extensions of the literary Gothic in the novel. While

not consciously using the techniques of specific Gothic novelists, he utilizes

the macabre images first presented in Lewis' Ambrosio to heighten suggestive

133 Richard Taylor, Neglected Hardy, 19.

134 D.H. Lawrence, "Study of Thomas Hardy (Le Gay Savaire)", chap. in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays (1936), ed. Bruce Steele, The Works of D.H. Lawrence Series, eds. Boulton, James, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 47.

terrors. Rather than constructing simple stock villains, he creates complex

anti-heroes, similar to Maturin's Melmoth. Integrating later interpretations,

his exploration of desire and depravity reflects the Victorian Gothic

preoccupation with the natural and unnatural.

Nevertheless, in most instances Hardy remains content to rely upon

non-integrated Gothic paraphernalia without expanding into the

complexities that later Gothic fiction explored. The initial interment of

Manston's murdered spouse in a large oven-later mortared over-points to

the conventional Gothic fear of confinement and imprisonment, but no

linkage is made to Cytherea's later isolation at the Knapwater estate. The

manor house is a place of terror and mystery for Cytherea, but also erotically

energizing, as she becomes more aware of her sexuality. Nevertheless, the

issue is never fully addressed. Meanwhile, while Manston's divided self is

well documented in the earlier portions of the novel, he inexplicably

transforms into a stock Gothic villain in the concluding pages. Most

puzzling though, is the convoluted story-line's fragmented allusions to

homosexuality, incest, and other depraved practices.

Hardy's stated objective in Desperate Remedies was "simply to

construct an intricate puzzle which nobody would guess till the end",

although he later admitted that he had concentrated too much on "mystery,

entanglement, surprise, and moral obliquity".135 The Athenaeum agreed that

the main interest in the novel was in the detection of crimes,136 but one

135 Thomas Hardy, letter to Malcolm Macmillan, 17 Aug, 1871 in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy I: 1840- 1892 , eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978), 12. 7 vols.; and Desperate Remedies, "Prefatory Note", xxxi. Title of first reference subsequently referred to as CL I.

136 Anonymous, (Review of Desperate Remedies), incorrectly identified as from Spectator, 22 April 1871:481-3; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 43.

important reviewer had moral reservations about the book before it was

published. John Morley, a man of letters, personal friend, and in-house

reviewer of Macmillan, read the original draft that Hardy submitted.

Disapproving of the lavish scenes between Cytherea and Miss Aldclyffe, he

cautioned the publisher, "Don't touch this",136 and the novel was refused.

Hardy then paid Tinsley seventy five pounds up front to publish it, and less

than a year after Macmillan's initial refusal, the novel was released.

Beginning the story in archetypal Gothic fashion, Hardy supports the

characteristic pattern of virtue endangered by villainy. In many ways

Cytherea is a typical Gothic heroine, passive and naiVe. Newly orphaned, she

takes up a position as a lady's maid twenty miles away from the home she

shared with her brother. Similar to the grim settings of cloistered

monasteries and convents that Gothic writers employed, Knapwater House is

a remote and isolated place. Cytherea is hidden away from everyone and

everything that is familiar to her. Miss Aldclyffe, who promised "to be exactly

as a mother to you", does not protect the young girl from the threat that

Manston represents, but encourages his suit and pressures her to marry him

(6-1, 70).

Much like Catherine in Northanger Abbey, Cytherea is subject to

recurrent Gothic terrors which have no basis in fact. Many are pure

fabrications, affected by her sense of perception. On her first night at

Knapwater House, Cytherea marks the "the gushing of the waterfall... [and]

Correct citation: Anonymous, (Review of Desperate Remedies), Athenxnum No. 2266,1 April, 1871: 399.

136 Charles Morgan, The House of Macmillan (1843-1943) (London: Macmillan, 1943),94.

metallic creak" of the water wheel (6-2, 71). These sounds take on a menacing

tone, as she creates visually threatening Gothic images to accompany them.

She imagines that through a crevice in the engine-house she can "see"' a

"glistening water wheel" and "observe" the moon shining in "skeleton-like

rays, striking upon portions of wet rusty cranks and chains". Simultaneously

the water wheel was "turning incessantly, labouring in the dark like a captive

starving in a dungeon" ( 6-2, 71).

Restricted by the circumstances of her life and confined to the

Knapwater Estate, Cytherea's feelings of imprisonment surface in her mind.

This results in illusory images of chains, prisoners, and dungeons. In an

alliance of emotion with atmosphere, her own despair about her situation

accounts for the gloomy aspects of her mental pictures; the glimmers of the

attenuated moon and the attendant shadows.

Out walking with Manston, who continues to press his suit, her eyes

fall upon some mandrakes growing in the middle distance and she "could

almost fancy she heard their shrieks" (12-6, 186). She identifies with the

mandrake: a forked root which resembles the human body, it was supposed to

scream when pulled out of the ground. She has similarly been tom away

from her base. Left fatherless, deserted by her former lover, and compelled to

provide for her newly incapacitated brother, she is circumscribed by her role

as a single Victorian woman. If she wishes to escape poverty and help her

brother, the only recourse available to her is to accept Manston's offer of

marriage.

Manston proposes in the fetid atmosphere of a church building in

decline, with "wormy pews" and "mildewed walls" reflecting and affecting

her feelings of despair (12-8,190). By marrying a man she does not love, she

heightens the sense of futility and meaninglessness of participating in what is

considered to be a central Christian sacrament. In her acquiescence, she

makes a travesty of the marriage vows and consents to the forfeiture of her

own self. In "the dank air of death" that permeates the decrepit church, she

agrees to the death of her soul (12-8,190).

Gothic images connected to death dominated her thoughts. The night

before her marriage to Manston, Cytherea was troubled by a noise below her

bedroom windows. It sounded like switches being beaten against the wall. In

a disturbed sleep, she dreams she was being

whipped with dry bones suspended on strings,... she shifted and shrank and avoided every blow, and they fell then upon the wall to which she was tied. She couldn't see the face of the executioner ... but his form was Manston's. (13-1,195)

Typical of a Gothic heroine, Cytherea had a penchant of imagining horrible

scenarios and sensing danger where it did not exist. These fears manifested

themselves in her nightmare, where she suffered at the hands of an

executioner who had the power of death over her. The unknown stranger's

shape are likened to her fiancee's, and just as she tried to avoid his "blows",

she was also desperate to evade Manston's own efforts to subdue her and

coerce her into marrying him. However, she could not escape from either

situation because in her dream she was "tied" to a wall, while in real life she

remained trapped by circumstances. The gruesome physical images of torture

also reflected her feelings of mental torment-the despair she experienced

when considering her imminent marriage. Despite her indifference to the

future and her reasoning that "even Christianity urges me to marry", she still

shrank from the idea of a soulless union with Manston (12-7, 188).

There is a Gothic suggestiveness that the ominous noises Cytherea

hears are caused by an external force. The trees around the house are planted

far away from the structure and never touch the walls, even in tumultuous

wind, so they are not the source of the troubling sounds. Inexplicable by

normal means, this anomalous sound alerts her to the possible presence of

outside agencies. However, as Taylor posits, Cytherea has "already revealed

herself as something of a masochist",137 so the more likely explanation is that

her faulty perception and sense of foreboding are manifesting themselves in a

horrific imaginary manner (13-1, 195).

Macabre forms and figures continue to influence her. After her

marriage to Manston is irrevocably concluded, she glances through the

scrollwork of a small chapel attached to the church, and behind the screen

saw

the reclining figures of cross-legged knights, damp and green with age, and above them a huge classic monument ... heavily sculptured in cadaverous marble.

Leaning here-almost hanging to the monument-was Edward Springrove, or his spirit. (13-3, 201)

Her former lover has merged into the statue, with his "spectre-thin" figure

pressed into the stone. His face was "of a sickly paleness" and his hair "dry

and disordered". The only life appeared to be in the "wild" eyes (13-3, 201).

The Gothic effigies of the long-dead knights and the memorial made

of "cadaverous" marble are emblematic of death. Leaning upon them, the

phantom-like Springrove appears to be dying himself. His flesh matches the

color of the pallid marble and he is "spectre-thin". His unkempt hair and

the wildness of his eyes are expressive of frenzied emotion, but no verbal

communication passes between Cytherea and Springrove. Manston fails to

notice anything amiss and when Owen tries to find the "apparition" who

137 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 14.

looked like Springrove, "he had gone, nobody could know how or whither"

(13-3,201).

Despite suggestions to the contrary, this figure of Springrove is not a

figment of Cytherea's imagination. His physical presence is finally verified by

Owen, who angrily observes that Springrove "had no business to come here

as he did" (13-4, 202). Her past suitor's ghostly countenance is embellished by

Cytherea's feelings of guilt and her assumption that she caused his apparent

suffering. His unexpected arrival awakens dormant emotions in her and she

realizes that she still loves him. Nevertheless, like Radcliffe's Emily,

Cytherea is subject to social convention and, as a married woman, her

primary duty is to her husband. When Springrove approaches her, she

informs him that the marriage is sealed; "the deed is done-I must abide by it.

I shall never let him know that I do not love him-never" (13-4, 207).

Despite this declaration, Cytherea tightly grasps the reprieve she is

given in the form of Owen's information that the marriage may be bigamous,

and therefore, neither legal nor binding. Seeing a possible escape from a

soulless marriage,

there arose in her a personal fear of him. 'Suppose he should come in now and seize me!' This at first mere frenzied supposition grew by degrees to a definite horror of his presence ... Thus she raised herself to a heat of excitement. (18-7, 220)

Cytherea has distanced herself from the physical side of the relationship, even

denying Manston a kiss at the moment of their betrothal. Given the

opportunity of delaying or possibly even escaping her marital duty, she

becomes haunted by the fear that this chance will be taken from her.

Cytherea raises herself to a heightened "frenzied" emotional state.

The fear that Manston might forcibly "seize her" mixes with the "heat of

excitement", as she is both afraid and thrilled by the possibility of Manston's

presence and what it might lead to; namely, the consummation of the

marriage. The physical and emotional strains of the day's events leave

Cytherea "almost delirious", with the landlady thinking her "half-insane" (18-

7,220,221).

The final Gothic terror that Cytherea encounters is a ghostly visitor.

At night, although she is

most probably dreaming, she seemed to awaken-and was immediately transfixed by a sort of spell... At the foot of her bed, looking her in the face ... was the form of Mrs. Aldclyffe-wan and distinct (21-4, 323).

An hour later it transpires that Mrs. Aldclyffe had died that morning at

approximately the same time that her figure had appeared to Cytherea.

The appearance a ghost can rationally be explained as the result of

Cytherea's skewed sense of reality, but this incident also contains

supernatural intimations While Hardy indicates that the vision of the old

woman is "probably" a dream, he does not exclude the possibility that the

sight is real. Gothic ghosts and visions, "defy rational explanation and

suggest a realm not governed by laws understandable by reason."139

While Cytherea has inexplicable experiences possibly caused by

unknown sources, Manston appears to actually possess supernatural powers.

In outward appearance he is an "extremely handsome ... well-dressed" man,

with an articulate and elegant manner (8-4, 109). Apparently twenty-seven

years old, he has unusually flawless skin of an "almost preternatural

clearness", with no "blemish or speck of any kind to mar the smoothness of

its surface" (8-4, 109). With no wrinkles and no other clear indication of age,

139 Kevin Moore, "The Poet", 34.

Manston bears some resemblance to the perpetually youthful and satanic

Melmoth.

The Mephistophelian aspect of Manston's character comes into view

most strongly in a Gothic episode, when Cytherea takes reluctant refuge in

the old manor-house to escape a brief thunderstorm. As she walks towards

the old manor house-Manston's new living quarters-the structure rises

eerily "before her against the dark foliage and sky in tones of strange

whiteness" (8-4,108). An alien place, the building's aura of "general

unearthly weirdness", reflects Manston's own strange nature (8-4,112). The

disproportionately large windows in the manor house provide ample ingress

for lightning, and in a suggestion of supernatural ability, Manston

deliberately shows Cytherea that he has the Satanic ability to look directly at

the flashes of light with no ill effect. Jean Brooks likens Manston to a

"demonic Fiddler of the Reels", who has the power of "sexually fascinating

an impressionable girl by his music".140

Manston does have an inexplicable bewitching power. In their first

direct encounter, he entices Cytherea into his converted parlor and starts to

play an organ. Executed with "the completeness of full orchestral power ...

the tones ... [are] heightened by the elemental strife of light and sound

outside" (8-4, 113). The tumultuous weather serves to accentuate his ability.

The organ peals and the thunder combine with the intense visual forks of

lightening to create a awful, terrifying, and therefore, sublime experience that

140 Jean Brooks, Thomas Hardy: The Poetic Structure (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), 154. This particular quotation is referred to by C.J.P. Beatty in the notes of the 1975 edition of Desperate Remedies [note 112,339]. Interestingly, the endnote omits the word "sexually" with no ellipses in its place. It seems that even in 1975, Macmillan was still imposing their own moral standards on Hardy's novels.

that is expressive of the Gothic. Her soul expands and contributes to the

"gnawing thrill" that Cytherea feels (8-4,114).

Mesmerized, she is "swayed into emotional opinions concerning the

strange man" (8-4,113). Her surging emotions and the music, an "explicit

metaphor for sexual attraction", combine with the striking invasion of sight

and sound to heighten the power of Manston's and Cytherea's erotic

encounter.140 The sexual connotation of Manston's musical instrument

anticipates her incipient sensual awakening, as, in a double entendre, he

assures her "she would soon acquire the touch for" his organ (8-4, 111).

Combining ambiguity, terror, awe, and sublimity, this Gothic storm

scene is one of Hardy's finest, but Joe Fisher contends that the "melodramatic

imagery" of this episode conceals the sexual element.141 Ignoring the

significance of Manston's covert invitation to Cytherea, Fisher considers his

organ playing as a form of male-dominated foreplay; an "auto-eroticism" that

gives a

pejorative and accurate introduction to his character; and so does his egotistical notion of foreplay, metaphorically turning the woman into an unwilling voyeur while he masturbates his 'organ'.142

However, while Cytherea is an unwilling audience to Manston's self-centered

musical foreplay, the voyeuristic role in this scene clearly belongs to him. His

eyes hold a "steady regard" for Cytherea as she approaches his lodgings. He is

"looking in her eyes" while he plays the organ and when she departs, his gaze

140A. Aziz. Bulaila, "Desperate Remedies: Not Just a Minor Novel", The Thomas Hardy Journal 14:1 (Feb. 1998): 70.

141 Fisher, 27.

142 Fisher, 29.

79

remains upon her until she "become [s] hidden from his view" (8-4, 110, 113,

114).

Fisher's interpretation of Manston's organ playing is also problematic.

There is no denying that Hardy tested further limits of acceptability in his

later works, where the erotic was always a subtext. As a successful author he

courted controversy, but at the time of Desperate Remedies, he was just

another writer struggling to establish himself. It is questionable whether he

would seek the kind of dubious attention that would be accorded to an author

who alluded to such a subject. Nevertheless, this uncertainty over Hardy's

intentions increases the overall ambiguity of the text.

Indeed, in the tone of doubleness that typifies the entire novel, Richard

Taylor considers Manston's masculinity suspect. In appearance, his lips were

"full and luscious to a surprising degrees, possessing a woman-like softness of

curve", while he also has a "too-delicately beautiful face" (8-4,109,112 ).

While his passion for Cytherea is presented as genuine, he leaves his new

wife alone in a hotel on their wedding night, suggesting that his sexuality is

"less potent than might be expected".144

Manston desires Cytherea, but he also wants power and control over

her, resolving after the abortive marriage that he "will claim the young thing

yet" (14-1, 227). The next time he appears in the novel, it is as a "panting and

maddened desperado-blind to everything but the capture of his wife" (20-2,

310). Turning into a common criminal, he breaks into her lodging, cruelly

"seizing one of her long brown tresses" to draw her into his arms (20-2, 311).

When the hero Springrove enters to rescue her, "a desperate wrestle" ensues,

with Manston trying to incapacitate him with a knife (20-2, 311).

144 Richard Taylor, N eglected55.

Due to the contradictions surrounding his characterization, the reader

is not fully able to accept Manston's final degeneration into a standard Gothic

villain who has no compunction against using violence to secure Cytherea.

Although his preternatural flawless skin and alluring power indicate a

possible Satanic link, his ardour for Cytherea is presented as real and he is

drawn to her by "an irresistible attraction, rather than inherent villainy".144

While an initial lack of restraint caused him to impulsively kill his first wife,

Manston does possess a certain amount of self-discipline, especially when it

comes to saving his own life. When unable to disprove Owen's mistaken

idea that his marriage to Cytherea is bigamous, he controls his rage by "pacing

up and down the room till he had mastered if' (13-10, 223-4). Therefore, the

insinuation that he lost all self-control in his pursuit of Cytherea, to the point

of becoming "blind to everything", rings false.

Manston also retains human frailties, admitting to being "troubled"

and plaintively wondering why he is unhappy. Looking into a rainwater-

butt, he sees

hundreds of thousands of minute living creatures [as they] sported and tumbled in its depth with every contortion that gaiety could suggest, perfectly happy, though consisting only of a head, or a tail, and all doomed to die within the twenty-four hours ... [He asks] 'Why shouldn't I be happy through my little day too?' (12-3,178)

Manston longs for the sensual existence of the organisms, not understanding

that there are various levels of life. "Hypersensitive of multiple scale,

multiple time", Hardy stresses that no life is of any greater or less significance

than another. After all, he notes, "to insects the twelve months is an epoch,

144 Harvey Webster, On a Darkling Plain (n.p.: University of Connecticut Press, 1947; reprint, London: Frank Cass and Co., 1964), 98.

to leaves a life, to tweeting birds a generation, to man a year".145

Epheremons and other diminutive beings cavort on their own small scale

and have unflagging enjoyment because they know "nothing of their brief

glorification", but man has "the unique problem [of] consciousness".146 As

self-aware creatures, humans cannot exist in a simple state of constant

pleasure, although this is a fact Manston fails to recognize. He eventually

resorts to violence in his attempt to enjoy the pleasures of an unwilling

Cytherea.

Displaying the constraints imposed by the demands of a Gothic

narrative, Hardy is unable to "adequately prepare" the reader for Manston's

descent into violence.147 His degradation exposes the artificiality of the stock

Gothic villain. Though a criminal man with satanic traits, he is too

interesting and complicated to serve as a standard Gothic villain. His

character has to be manipulated, and no matter how implausible it seems,

Manston's passion for Cytherea must change into uncontrollable brutality.

At the same time, this inexplicable alteration of his character enables Hardy to

destabilize the concept of villainy by questioning the distinction between

desire and depravity, the natural and the unnatural.

Bulaila asserts that, much like Ambrosio, Manston is a victim of

"society's moral conventions which cannot accommodate his healthy

145 Gillian Beer, "Finding a Scale for the Human: Plot and Writing in Hardy's Novels", chap. in Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and

Nineteenth-Century Fiction (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 252; and T. Hardy, The Early Life of Thomas Hardy (1840-1891) (London: Macmillan, 1928; reprint, London: Studio Expressions, 1994), (reprint page numbers identical to original edition), 72. Title subsequently referred to as EL.

146 Thomas Hardy,Tess of the d'Urrbervilles, XXXII, 169; Beer, 252; and ThomasHardy, LY, 168.

147 Webster, 98.

sexuality".148 His repressed desire bursts out in the form of attempted rape.

Richard Taylor claims that Miss Aldclyffe is also a victim of "repression and ...

frustrated sexuality".149 She attempts to appease these feelings by showering

Cytherea with excessive and inappropriate displays of affection, but unlike

Manston, she can camouflage this depraved gratification under the guise of

motherly love.

Catherine Neale notes that Miss Aldclyffe and Manston are "each

sensually attracted to Cytherea".150 In possession of a special "flexibility and

elasticity", this attribute of Cytherea first attracts Miss Aldclyffe's attention (1-

3, 5). After observing the refinement and precision of her physical exit from

the room where she has interviewed her, the older woman saw her as "a

creature who could glide round my luxurious indolent body" ( 4-2,45). Miss

Aldclyffe is also intrigued by Cytherea's other qualities. She likes the way the

young girl looks at her and feels pleasure at the presupposition that her

fingers would be "light... upon one's head and neck" (4-2,45). Does Miss

Aldclyffe view Cytherea only as a servant who, in a visually pleasing and

graceful manner, would "glide round" her body, whilst performing the usual

toiletry duties of a lady's maid, or as someone who would give her personal

pleasure?

The coachman who delivers Cytherea to Knapwater House on her first

day of work considers Miss Aldclyffe to be "an extraordinary picture of

womankind", but even her "quick temper" cannot fully explain why the

previous seven lady's maids left her employment after only one night (5-1,

148 Bulaila, 71.

149 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 16.

150 Catherine Neale, "Desperate Remedies: The Merits and Demerits of Popular Fiction", Critical Survey 5:2 (1993): 117.

49). Miss Aldclyffe's disquieting behavior to Cytherea on her first evening

goes some way to understanding why they left so quickly.

The older woman comes to Cytherea's bedroom late at night and asks if

she can sleep in her bed, imploring, "I want to stay with you Cythie" (6-1, 64).

The instant they are in bed, she throws her arms around the young girl and

presses "upon Cytherea's lips a warm motherly salute", asking her why she

cannot return her kisses with the same earnestness (6-1, 65). Discovering

through intense questioning that Cytherea has been previously kissed by a

man, Miss Aldclyffe berates her for not being the innocent she thought she

was, then entreats her to "love me more than you love him .... don't let any

man stand between us" (6-1, 67). Angiy at Cytherea's negative response and

regarding her as damaged goods, the older woman feels a fool for "sipping at

your mouth as if it were honey, because I fancied no wasting lover to know

the spot" (6-1, 68). Her temper spent, Miss Aldclyffe reverts to her motherly

role and requests that Cytherea put her "hands round your mamma's neck"

(6-1, 70).

Miss Aldclyffe acts like a lover, but Hardy begins and ends this episode

by concentrating on the mother-daughter link, thereby channeling the lavish

affection of Miss Aldclyffe into an acceptable ideology. Yet, Macmillan

refused to publish Desperate Remedies, largely due to the "highly

extravagant" scene "between Miss Aldclyffe and her new maid in bed".151

There are unquestionably lesbian overtones in the older woman's desire for

physical contact, especially passionate kissing. The "sipping" of Cytherea's

lips is highly homoerotic, while her appeal to Cytherea to love her more than

any man indicates an obsessive need to be the sole focus of attention.

151 Charles Morgan, 94.

The homosexual aspects of their relationship were not overt. The

Saturday Review characterized Miss Aldclyffe as "a haughty but affectionate

patroness", suggesting that they did not view the warmth shown by the older

woman towards the younger one as aberrant.152 The Athemaeum

commented on the "occasional coarseness" of the novel but did not censure

Hardy for alluding to unnatural relations.153 The servants note that a

"secret bond of connection existed" between the two, but since they were

"woman and woman, not woman and man", it appears transparently evident

to them that two females would not be lovers (8-1, 94).

Some recent critics disagree with this complacent attitude. Joe Fisher

argues against the assumption that "no lady would make love to another

lady, so the scene must mean what it says, not what it implies".154 He insists

that Hardy is testing the "gullibility" of the Victorian ideology. Judith

Wittenberg allows that there is a "sexual component" in the words and

embraces that the two woman share on the night before Mr. Aldclyffe's

death.155 Hardy notes that upon hearing the news of her father's death, Miss

Aldclyffe, held Cytherea "almost as a lover", but thereafter the homosexual

implications are muted, as if the after effects of the old man's demise mitigate

152 Anonymous, (Review of Desperate Remedies), The Saturday Review, 30 April, 1871, XXXII: 441-2; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, 'The Contemporary Response," ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 48.

153 Anonymous, (Review of Desperate Remedies), incorrectly identified as from Spectator, 22 April 1871; 481-3; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response," ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 43.

Correct citation: Anonymous, (Review of Desperate Remedies), Athenaenum No. 22661 April. 1871: 399.

154 Fisher, 27.

155 Judith Wittenberg, "Early Hardy Novels", 158.

her sexual interest in Cytherea (6-4, 78). Once Miss Aldclyffe learns that the

young woman's late father was her former suitor, she comes to view her as

the daughter she might have had, if her previous relationship with Mr. Graye

had not been cut short. There is nothing inappropriate about Miss Aldclyffe's

subsequent "doting fondness" for Cytherea ( 8-1, 93). Her sole objective in life

becomes the arrangement of a union between her perceived daughter,

Cytherea, and her son, Manston.

By inheriting the Knapwater estate, Miss Aldclyffe challenges the

preconceived roles of Victorian women, as it allows her to adopt "a powerful

patriarchal role", which enables her to recall her illegitimate son and coerce

Cytherea into marrying him.156 Still, a vague disquieting sense of impure

intimacy pervades the relationship between the trio. Balaila argues that by

bringing Manston and Cytherea together "through the agency of Mrs.

Aldclyffe", Hardy introduces the theme of incest.157 The older woman

promotes the idea of a union between her former maid and Manston, but she

regards Cytherea as her own would-be daughter. Through incest "the violent

abolition of all family differences is achieved", rendering the difference

between mother and surrogate daughter negligible.158

Adding to their similarities, the two female protagonists share their

same unusual forename with a Greek goddess. (To readers versed in the

classics, the names of the main characters would provide an early clue to the

novel's denouement.) As legend has it, the Phoenicians who colonized the

island of Cytherea introduced the worship of the Greek goddess of love,

156 Neale, 118.

157 Bulaila, 67.

158 Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred (1972), trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), 74.

86

Aphrodite, and re-christened her "Cytheraea", after their new home. The

mythical divinity had a magic transfixing power which was presumed to be

due to the belt of mandrake roots she wore, and she also had a son called

JEneas.

Like the goddess, Miss Aldclyffe has a son with the name of AJneas,

while Cytherea Graye's linkage to the mythical divinity is achieved through

mandrake imagery. The young Cytherea identifies with the plant early in the

novel, although she does not wear a belt of roots like the goddess of love.

However, mandrakes were traditionally believed to be a powerful

aphrodisiac, so her association with them provides one possible reason for

Manston's erotic attraction to her.

Manston's dual role as son/ fascinated lover further binds the females

together. As Cytherea Gray and Cytherea Aldclyffe become increasingly

indistinguishable, the threat of incest emerges in a monstrously Gothic

manner. A person in the throes of passion will willingly accept a substitute

if "the object to which it was originally attached remains inaccessible".159

With Cytherea unavailable to Manston, Miss Aldclyffe becomes an

alternative object of desire for him. This idea is never developed; indeed,

such a plot complication would never have been conceived by Hardy.

Nevertheless, in his unconscious allusion to incest he unleashes "a dark

mixture of unnamable things" that, like the Gothic, gestures to the unknown,

the inexplicable.160

159 Girard, 35.

160 Girard, 75.

Hardy consciously experimented with a combination of traditional and

modem Gothic themes and images in Desperate Remedies. He created a

Gothic plot, concentrating on the theme of the inescapable past, with a

mystery that is only explained at the end. He effectively exploited the

suggestive supernatural elements inherent in Gothic fiction. There are eerie

and ominous sounds, ghostly images, and macabre nightmare images. These

conventional tropes are only vacuously Gothic though, because they fail to

gesture towards further possibilities. Instead, they simply create "undue

sensationalism or distraction from the essential plot".161

Cytherea is the traditional passive heroine of Gothic fiction, threatened

by Manston, the male interloper. However, unlike the classic Radcliffian

heroine, she experiences feelings of desire. Similarly, Manston is more

complex than the standard Gothic villain. His final descent into depravity

lacks credence, but it also reveals the limits of the Gothic genre. At the same

time, his degeneration gives Hardy the opportunity to explore the difference

between natural and unnatural behaviour.

The novel offers many alternatives to the "contracted state of sexual

relations" with ambiguous allusions to bigamy, adultery, illegitimacy, incest,

homosexuality, and bestiality.162 The romantic love that exists between

Cytherea and Springrove is evident early on in the story, but then it

disappears, re-emerging only in the last chapter. As in traditional Gothic

fiction, the novel concludes with marriage, but the union of Cytherea and

Springrove, based on love and affection, clashes with the sexually subversive

tone of the novel.

161 Goldstein, 89.

162 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 15; and Fisher, 37.

Despite the manifold Gothic vehicles present in the novel, there is

little attempt to merge Gothic images with serious Gothic themes. The storm

scene is expressive of the Gothic, as terror and awe lead to a sublime

environment that expands Cytherea's consciousness. However, Hardy

appears to be unsure of where to go with the Gothic. He suggests that

Manston is able to harness supernatural powers, but there is no mention of

the numinous; no allusion to another reality beyond human comprehension.

Desperate Remedies was a necessary first step for Hardy. At the time of

its writing, he was just formulating his ideas of the Gothic, and the novel

served as a template for Gothic atmospheres, images, tropes, and themes. He

had to learn how to utilize standard Gothic modes of representation before he

could express his sense of the Gothic.

CHAPTER THREE

GOTHIC INTEGRATION IN A PAIR OF BLUEEYES

Desperate Remedies and Under the Greenwood Tree were published

anonymously, but Hardy openly claimed authorship of A Pair of Blue Eyes.

His third published novel was the first to be serialized, running in Tinsley's

Magazine from September 1872 to July 1873. Released in book form in late

1873, the Pall Mall Gazette praised it as "charmingly written", but "undeniably

sad". John Hutton of the Spectator agreed, "we would willingly have

compounded for a happier conclusion".163

F.B. Pinion maintains that the story is initially "a comedy of jealous

lovers", turned into "solemn tragedy".164 However, Elfride can not be

163 Anonymous, Review of "A Pair of Blue Eyes", Pall M all Gazette 25 Oct., 1873:11; and John Hutton (probable), "Review of "A Pair of Blue Eyes", Spectator 28 June, 1873:830.

164 Pinion, Companion, 25.

considered a tragic figure, especially as she disappears from the novel in the

last four chapters, only reappearing as "a coffined corpse" in the concluding

pages.165 Casagrande contends that the author "penetrated to the tragic

substrata of comedy" in the novel, and indeed; Hardy asserted that tragedy

"always underlies comedy if you only scratch it deep enough".166

Millgate insists that the tragedy and humour in the novel are not

integrated and have no relationship to each other. Under the pressure of

serialization, he notes that the novel becomes a "rag-bag of information,

ideas, [and] descriptive vignettes", with little cohesion.167 As is customary in

most of Hardy's novels, A Pair of Blue Eyes features highly improbable

incidents and contrived coincidences. Mrs. Jethway's haunting and

"inexorable presence at crucial moments" is implausible, while Knight7 s

connections to Elfride as step-relative and reviewer of her novel are

unlikely.168 His roles as mentor, friend, and ultimate rival to Stephen are

also amazingly coincidental. Stephen himself is conveniently sent off to

India one third of the way through the novel, and improbably, upon his

return, both he and Knight travel on the same railway coach to Endelstow to

claim Elfride. In a contrived manner, the young woman is in a separate

carriage of their train, but in a coffin, as death has already claimed her.

Despite the improbabilities and the novel's lack of synthesis, in specific scenes

165 Norman Page, "Hardy's Deathbeds", Thomas Hardy Annual 3 (1985): 97.

166 CLIII, letter to J.B. Priestly, 8 Aug. 1926, 38.; and Peter Casagrande, Unity in Hardy's Novels: 'Repetitive Symmetries' (London: Macmillan, 1982), 115.

167 Millgate, Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist (London: Bodley Head, 1971), 67. Subsequent references will be abbreviated as His Career.

168 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 53.

Hardy effectively integrates images with themes and further develops his

skill at allying landscape with mood.

Ronald Blythe asserts that although Hardy has difficulties trying to

stretch out a plot that contains the emotions and impulses of a ballad, the

novel reflects the disturbed reality that characterizes folk ballads.169

Although Hardy makes no direct references to the Gothic genre, he claims the

novel is set in a "region of dream and mystery".170 Some of the action takes

place in urban areas, but the novel's main setting is the fictional isolated

district of West Endelstow, located on the south coast of England. (The

location is based on St. Juliet, a small village near Boscastle where the young

author first met his future wife.) The novel contains mysterious events and

grotesque characters, while the symbols, images, and sounds of death resonate

throughout the text, intruding even into the most incongruous places.

Intimate talks are conducted on top of tombs, and both humorous and serious

conversations take place in the Luxellian family burial vault.

The plot depicts a young girl threatened by a shadowy villainess. The

heroine wishes to erase the very recent past, but "the vengeance-seeking

mother of her first admirer" plans to publicize her dubious past.171 She first

informs the hero, who is the girl's fiancee, and he breaks off their

engagement. However, he is able to suppress the potentially scandalous

knowledge concerning his former sweetheart and stop it from being

disseminated.

169 Ronald Blythe, "Introduction", in Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) (London: Macmillan 'New Wessex', 1975, reprint, 1986), xv.

170 Thomas Hardy, EY, 299.

171 Blythe, xv.

Hardy uses the Gothic viUainess, Mrs. Jethway, as a symbol of the fatal

past, which can never die. In a more skillful integration of themes with

images, he also utilizes Knight's face-to-face encounter with a fossilized

trilobite to expose the vastness of the past. Graveyards, coffins, and crypts

also serve as tangible evidence of the inexorable passage of time. A haunting

figure, a prehistoric fossil, and the trappings of death represent the

inescapable, immense, and physical aspects of the past: a past that reminds

man of his own mortality and highlights the fact that neither death nor

elapsed time can be changed or evaded.

The maturation in the union of ideas and images coincides with an

improvement in the visual sharpness of Hardy's scenes. There is an austere

and sublime beauty in the "starved herbage" and foaming ocean that

surround the 'Cliff without a Name' (21,169). A new tactile acuity is also

displayed, with the tempestuous wind and sea serving as a reflection and

expression of Knight's erotic desire. Furthermore, when Knight appears to be

facing certain death, in an alliance of landscape and mood, the deep blue sea

and surf metamorphose into funereal black and white.

As in Hardy's first novel, the presence of supernatural powers is

implied, with even Elfride possessing an amount of unusual prescience.

The enigmatic Mrs. Jethway, "flitting through the shadows of the story",

haunts the graveyard where her son is buried "almost ghoulishly".172 This

strange obsessive aspect of her character reflects the Victorian Gothic concern

with abnormal behaviour and mental aberrations. Like a conventional

Gothic villainess, she seems to possess unusual abilities and knowledge.

Creating an aura of mystery, Hardy alternately promotes and discounts the

172 Pinion, Hardy Companion, 25.

possibility that the widow has special inexplicable powers. However,

unconsciously echoing Austen and Maturin, he implies that misperception

and the disturbed psyche are the sources of most Gothic terrors in the novel.

Mirroring the era's divisions over religious beliefs, Hardy's first

sustained criticism of Christianity occurs in A Pair of Blue Eyes, as he

compares the decaying grounds of the church to the sublime and powerful

forces of Nature. The latter inspires feelings of awe and wonderment, but the

former only generates a sense of apathy or indifference. The West Endelstow

place of worship is the emblem of a weak and dying authority, while the

indolent representative of the church, Mr. Swancourt, further symbolizes the

hypocrisy and spiritual barrenness of the Christian religion.

The principal action of the novel begins when a young man with a

"handsome boyish face" arrives to attend to the drawing and measuring

necessary to restore Endelstow Church. Elfride's widowed father "habitually

neglects her" and she leads a "lonely and narrow life" (10, 76; 11, 80).

Therefore, its is not surprising that she develops an infatuation with the

young male visitor. Stephen is "a youth in appearance, and not yet a man in

years", while Elfride is still a girl in a woman's body (2, 7). Although she is

nearly twenty years old, she only possesses the social skills of a fifteen-year

old. Yearning to be loved, her adolescent love is "rooted in inexperience and

nourished by seclusion".173 Her father's opposition to their courtship and the

seemingly hopeless nature of the situation increases her ardour.

173 Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) (London: Macmillan'New Wessex', 1975, reprint, 1986), 10, 76. All subsequent references to A Pair of Blue Eyes will be parenthetical, with chapter and page number.

Millgate comments on the "distractingly provocative behavior" Elfride

exhibits while Stephen attempts to do his work in the church.174 Left alone

with him, "what could she do but come close - so close that a minute arc of

her skirt touched his foot - and ask him how he was getting on with his

sketches" (4,19). "Was she flirting?" (20, 151). This is the question Knight

later asks himself, but he reasons that her "little artful ways which partly

make up ingenuousness" are genuine. "Simplicity verges on coquetry" and

Elfride has a simple childish need to be the centre of attention (20,151).

When her new stepmother introduces her to the London summer

scene's practice of taking an evening airing in a carriage, she is gratified to see

"several ladies and gentlemen looking at her" (14,110). On one of their rides,

the new Mrs. Swancourt unexpectedly encounters Henry Knight, her

nephew, and invites him to visit them in Endelstow. When he appears at

the village, Elfride is piqued by the thought that he does not seem to think

she is he worth talking to. In a successful bid to gain his notice, she

deliberately walks on the outside walls of the church tower, but stumbles and

falls towards the inner edge. Shaken by the close proximity of the "Shadow of

Death", Elfride becomes "sick and pale as a corpse", an image later reflected in

the "pale countenance" of Mrs. Jethway's body (18, 31). In a foreshadowing

of Knight's arrested fall off the 'Cliff with No Name', Elfride shows

prescience, as she tells him of her premonition that "something similar to

that scene is again to be common to us both" (18, 131).

Gothic tropes of death and reminders of the past surround Elfride and

suggest that all of her romances are doomed. She and Stephen confess their

love for each other while sitting on Felix Jethway's tomb in the graveyard.

174 Millgate, Biography 143.

Near the end of her affair with Knight, he is shocked by Elfride's revelation

that she has "a lover in the tomb and a lover on if'(32, 257). He gazes at the

church graveyard, where the impassive grave of Felix Jethway "stood staring

them in the face like an avenging ghost" (32, 257). Minutes later, the ghostly

figure of Mrs. Jethway is laid out upon this same tomb. In a highly ironical

moment, the widow is crushed to death by the crumbling church tower and

carried to her dead son's final resting place. Even in death Mrs. Jethway, the

symbol of the fatal past, is able to avenge herself and destroy Elfride's chance

for happiness with Knight.

While Mrs. Jethway is a conventional Gothic villainess, Elfride is not a

traditional Gothic heroine. In typical Gothic novels, such as Radcliffe's

U do Ip ho, the heroine is usually an naiVe, irreproachable, and compliant

young woman who reflects the ideology of the eighteenth-century. In the

archetypal plot, she is threatened by a male stranger and spirited away to

unfamiliar territory. After undergoing frightening trials and viewing alleged

supernatural apparitions, she is rescued and restored to her mannered world,

where all unusual experiences are shown to have logical explanations.

Elfride is a naiVe girl, but she is not irreproachable. Aside from her

poor judgment in accompanying Stephen to London, she actively rebels

against parental authority-a common trait of post-Radcliffe Gothic heroines-

and in a determined manner, refuses to submit to her father's dictate to forget

Stephen. Yet, on her way to St. Launce, where she will take a train to meet

him, she passively decides to go "whither the horse should take her-back to

Endelstow or towards the station (11, 87). Unwilling to accept responsibility,

she persists in a "dreamy fancy that to-day's action was not her own", until

she reaches London, where the clang and clamour of Paddington station

rouse her (11, 86). In one of her few active moments of resolution, she

chooses to return to Endelstow.

In a variation on the common Gothic plot, Elfride is endangered, not

by a male interloper, but by a vengeful woman armed with an archaic moral

code. The widow's ability and desire to widely disseminate her knowledge of

Elfride's indiscretion is a very real threat. Although guilty of nothing more

than a lapse in judgment, Elfride is condemned by the medieval laws of

Christianity. She has spent the night in the company of a man and has not

married him. According to the prevailing moral code, this behaviour is base,

immoral, and scandalous. Mrs. Jethway, a "crazed, forlorn" woman, who,

according to Saxelby, "lived with the object of doing her [Elfride] an injury",

manages to deny the young woman's chance of happiness with Knight by

disclosing her past actions to him.176 He cancels their engagement, but does

not disclose the true reason to anyone. Thus the heroine is restored to her

proper place.

In a subversion of Gothic convention, Elfride's return to her original

status is not a positive development. Her family treats her with silent

reproach, implicitly blaming her for her failure to secure Knight. In the face

of her stepmother's "cold politeness" and her father's harshness, Elfride

becomes more compliant, like a conventional Gothic heroine (40, 307).

"Surrender[ing] in the face of despair"177, she placates them and regains their

conditional love by marrying Lord Luxellian. A better match than Knight in

terms of lineage and money, he is also a "splendid courtier" who gives her

"the beautifullest presents" (40, 307). He knows she will be "the most tender

17 25,194; and R. Outwin Saxelby, A Thomas Hardy Dictionary (London: Routledge and Sons, 1911), 107.

177 Bayer-Berenbaum, 51.

mother" to his two young daughters and hopes that she will do better than

his late wife, who had shown "an inclination not to please him by giving him

a boy" (40, 307; 5, 29). However, she does not love the nobleman.

Transforming into a submissive heroine, Elfride's new role reflects

nineteenth-century ideology. As a mother and wife, she is expected to care

for the existing children and produce a male heir. In "gross inversion" of

archetypal Gothic "endings of reward through marriage", Elfride suffers a

fatal miscarriage in attempting to fulfill the child-bearing expectations thrust

upon her.177

Mrs. Jethway indirectly helps to kill Elfride. As a one-dimensional

Gothic villainess, she displays little of the ambivalence or doubleness that

characterizes Manston in Desperate Remedies. In the matter of writing,

Hardy believed "human nature must never be made abnormal",178 but Mrs.

Jethway is a strange individual who exhibits aberrant behaviour. Often found

in the vicinity of her son's grave, Taylor likens the older woman to a

haunting "Gothic voyeuse".179 Described not in terms of shape, size, or hair

colour, her main distinguishing feature is her grotesque "red and scaly eyelids

and glistening eyes" (12, 90). These same eyes are "steadily regarding" Elfride

at every opportunity (27, 232).

The widow sees the opportunity to avenge herself when she observes

Elfride and Stephen disembarking from the early morning train at St. Launce.

The couple arrive shortly after dawn, and if not for the presence of Mrs.

Jethway at the station, Elfride's overnight absence would have passed

177 Vince Newey, "Thomas Hardy and the Forms of Making", 221.

178 Thomas Hardy, EL, 194.

179 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 53.

unnoticed. The impetus for the widow's early morning journey to the

railway station is unknown, unless she possesses some foreknowledge that

allowed her to catch the couple in a compromising position. After all, it takes

Elfride more than ninety minutes on horseback to travel from her house to a

hotel near the station. The older woman would have had to cover a similar

distance on foot in order to be present at the train platform shortly after

sunrise. She must have started walking extremely early in the morning,

unless, as Hardy implies, Mrs. Jethway uses some special powers that enable

her to discover harmful information about Elfride.

Despite already holding harmful information about Elfride's dubious

past, Mrs. Jethway continues to stalk the young woman. Brooks comments

on her "unmotivated appearances", while Taylor contends that her

"inexorable presence at crucial points is contrived", with her "dark form"

haunting the railway station, the churchyard, and the sea passage.181

Undeniably, the widow appears on the train platform and frequents her son's

grave, but the assumption that the widow pursues Elfride on water is

questionable. Planning to sail with her stepmother and Knight from London

to Plymouth, Elfride sees "a veiled woman walk aboard .... she was clothed in

black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm" (9, 231). Disturbed, she

immediately concludes that this woman is Mrs. Jethway, who "seemed to

haunt her like a shadow" (29, 231). Upon further thought, she considers it

unlikely that the woman is deliberately following her and presumes that she

is traveling to Southhampton, "her original home", which she often visited

in her "restlessness" (29, 231). Surmising that "she chose water-transit with

the idea of saving expense Elfride fails to note that there is no reason for the

181 Jean Brooks, 150; and Richard Taylor, Neglected, 33.

99

woman to even be in London (29, 231). She could travel from Endelstow to

Southhampton without venturing north into the capital city. Coming up to

London means she has to retrace her steps south to Plymouth, paying an

additional fare, which in her straitened state, is unlikely.

Even Elfride's claims of seeing "Mrs. Jethway, or her double ... sitting at

the stem", are doubtful because of her flawed sense of perception. As

darkness closes in, she becomes convinced that "her enemy" is nearby (27,

232). Going to sleep in a below-deck berth, Elfride is awakened by

a sense of whispering in her ear.'You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now,

but I shall win, you will find.'Elfride became quite awake and terrified. She knew the words,

if real, could be only those of one person, and that person the widow Jethway. But she might have been dreaming only...

Mrs. Jethway might have stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, or else have entered an empty berth next to Snewson's. The fear that this was the case increased Elfride's perturbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty. (29, 233)

At first, Elfride believes she is imagining these threatening words, but in the

gloom of the night, her fear increases until the half-formed idea that Mrs.

Jethway was the speaker becomes "a certainty". Hardy affirmed that

"apprehension is a great element in imagination. It is a semi-madness, which

sees enemies" all around.182

Did Mrs. Jethway contrive to get into the next-door berth, or did she

sneak into Elfride's own cabin to interfere with her sleep? Or, as Norma

Goldstein postulates, was it all a dream fostered by her "sense of guilt for not

telling Knight everything about her past"?183 Is she unconsciously punishing

182 Thomas Hardy, E l, 265.

183 Goldstein, 70.

punishing herself for the "intense agony of reproach" she saw in Stephen's

eyes, when he found out she had deserted him (27, 214)? Is Elfride's worry

that Mrs. Jethway might divulge hurtful knowledge manifesting itself in a

nightmare?

When the steamer reaches Plymouth in the daylight, Elfride's fright of

the night before seems unwarranted. There is no sign of the older woman

anywhere, suggesting that, like a wraith, she has left the boat unobserved, or

was never there in the first place. Hardy avoids any definitive explanation,

preferring to promote a typically Gothic aura of mystery and uncertainty.

In another technique that earlier Gothic authors employed, Hardy

allies landscape with mood by creating specific visual scenes to reflect mental

states. This interplay between environment and emotion is central in A Pair

of Blue Eyes , especially in the powerful scenes involving the 'Cliff without a

Name', where the desire of Elfride and Knight is set against the tempestuous,

tumultuous atmosphere surrounding the cliff. Hardy approaches the erotic

in a direct manner, displaying a new tactile acuity, as the couple's passion is

prefigured in the erotic images of the "thrust[ing]" wind and the sea, rubbing

its restless flank" against the rocky cliff (22, 173).

While Knight literally hangs onto life by his fingertips, the sublimity of

the atmosphere and the power of the natural surroundings emerge. The

landscape surrounding the 'Cliff without a Name'-the "haggard cliffs" with

the "outlying knots of starved herbage" and the foaming ocean of "white

border to a black sea"-has an austere beauty (22,170; 21,169; 22,173). The

deep blue sea and surf metamorphose into an ominous black and white-

Knight's "funereal pall and its edging" (22,173). As he continues to clutch a

tuft of grass, the inverted cascade of a summer shower ascends upwards,

hitting him feet first. Even though he understands the scientific rationale

behind the rain's movement, it still has "a torturing effect", as Nature appears

to contravene the laws of gravity (22, 172), His distressed state of mind

distorts his sense of perception, as the soft summer rain and temperate

temperature seem to transform into lashing arrows of cold water (22, 173).

As Richard Taylor remarks, the neutrality of Nature becomes as "frightening

as active hostility".183 Meanwhile, the sky above Knight stretches away to

infinity, emphasizing his sense of confinement:

The cliff formed the inner face of the segment of a hollow cylinder, having the sky for a top and the sea for a bottom, which enclosed the bay to the extent of nearly a semicircle [and] he could see the vertical face curving round on each side of him. He looked far down the facade, and realized more thoroughly how it threatened him. (22,170)

Rather than viewing an endless open expanse of sky and sea, Knight

discerns only the walls of the cliff closely crowding in upon him, like a semi­

circular prison, with no means of escape. Once he realizes the seriousness of

his predicament, Nature appears to take on a distinctly malevolent form:

"unfriendly" and "pitiless", it leaves him "spitted upon a rock" (22, 170, 172-

3). Just as the gods punished Prometheus for his audacious action, Nature is

the "cosmic agency" smiting Knight for his presumptuous attitude (22, 172).

The realization that his own death appears inevitable leads Knight to

"contemplate the Dark Valley and the unknown future beyond". The

narrative voice interrupts, informing the reader that into "these speculations

we will not follow" (22, 174). Although some critics see this obscurity as a

fault, Hardy was often intentionally vague about a character's inner turmoil,

183 Richard Taylor, Neglected, 41.

102

considering that "to indulge in psychological analysis ... in a crisis of an

emotional scene is fatal".185

Instead, like Gothic writers, Hardy used atmospheric images to depict

Knight's varying emotions of terror, wonder, and amazement. While he was

not necessarily conscious of the source, Hardy utilized Burkean tenets when

introducing terror as a source of the sublime. Burke noted that when

someone or something has the "power of inflicting either [pain or death] it is

impossible to be entirely free from terror".186 Furthermore, "we are more

struck at looking down from a precipice", height being less imposing than

depth.187 The cliff was potentially deadly to Knight and his life was certainly

in danger, so that was one source of fear. Looking two hundred yards down at

"the sheer perpendicularity" of the cliff at half-tide, and noting the blackness

of the bluff constituted an "added terror" for Knight (21,167). The colour and

altitude of the cliff engenders terror and awe, which is a principal source of

the sublime.

In addition, Knight's encounter with the fossilized remains of a

diminutive, long extinct creature is sublime. In fact, "the last extreme of

littleness is in some measure sublime", especially "when we pursue animal

life into these excessively small, and yet organized beings".188 Clinging to the

side of the cliff, Knight contemplates "animal life", while the dead stone eyes

of the long dead Trilobite stare at him.

185 Thomas Hardy, letter to Florence Henniker, 24 May 1909 in The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy IV: 1909-1913, eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1984), 24. Title subsequently referred to as CL IV.

186 Burke, 59.

187 Ibid., 66.

188 Burke, 66.

The expansion of reality and consciousness, engendered by feelings of

sublimity, is expressive of the Gothic. Transcending the present, Knight

gains an extraordinary glimpse into the beginning of the world. His

consciousness also reaches towards the future destruction of humankind; to a

realm than cannot be explained by knowledge or language. "Face to face

with the beginning and all the intermediate centuries simultaneously", he

follows evolution in a reverse fashion (22, 171). His imagination amplified

and his limited scope of reality augmented, he thinks of cavemen, preceded

by the dinosaurs, and before them, birds with huge bills and large "swinish

creatures". Even further back, he pictures in his mind the more grotesque

forms of life with "sinister crocodilian outlines ... and other uncouth shapes",

huge lizards, dragon-like things, reptiles that fly, and "fishy beings of lower

development". He recalls the prehistoric past, with the inchoate "uncouth

shapes" and primordial "fishy beings" that existed eons ago (22,171).

Through all the billions of years of evolution, creatures lived and died;

from the Archeozoic period with its ocean algae, to the Paleozoic, where

amphibians emerged from the sea and reptiles came into being, to the

Mesozoic, where cold-blooded dinosaurs took over, only to be replaced by

mammals, and finally the Cenozoic, when the first humanoids appeared (22,

171). The small Tribolite, dead and extinct, still represents "the modem

condition of things", because mankind too will eventually vanish, leaving

behind only fossilized remains (22, 171). Ruminating on his own mortality,

while Knight believes "his death would be a deliberate loss to the earth of

good material", on the evolutionary time scale, his life and death will not

even register (22,174). He is only an infinitesimal part of mankind, which in

turn is a minute part of the universe. Man is simply "another facet of nature

and not the pinnacle of a creation which existed for his comfort and

honour/'188 His existence is no more and no less important than that of the

Tribolite.

Reaching back towards the past and forwards to the future, the Gothic

gestures to the existence of an inexplicable, unknowable power. Christianity

also embraces a higher order and can induce sublime feelings of passion, awe,

and reverence. It provides for an augmentation of life, insisting on the

existence of a benevolent god and a heavenly arena where the spirit resides in

eternity. However, this doctrine and other dogmatic Christian beliefs were

untenable to many Victorians. Amid a growing disbelief, discontent with

organized religion increased. Hardy uses the figure of Mr. Swancourt to

highlight one of the reasons behind this dissatisfaction.

As the representative of Christianity, the rector of Endelstow is a less

than imposing figure. He has his share of physical infirmities-quite deaf, he

also suffers from gout-but most dispiriting is the air of spiritual barrenness

surrounding him, which seems indicative of the church in general. He

thinks nothing of breaking the second commandment, 'Thou shalt not take

the name of the Lord thy God in vain", by swearing at his only child, " 'Od

plague you' ", when she displeases him (1, 3). After wasting "a good deal of

his [first] wife's money", his second marriage is one of financial convenience,

suggesting that he is more interested in the material than the spiritual (26,

202). In addition, he is so indifferent and indolent about his post that he often

lets his daughter write his sermons.

The vicar represents the hypocrisy and decay of Christianity, while the

physical church highlights its decline. The West Endelstow place of worship

is not a fine structure or a sublime ruin that can serve as a visible symbol and

188 Blythe, xviii.

icon of a divine force; instead it is an emblem of a dying power. Described in

stark terms, the edifice is

lonely ... black and bare, cutting up into the sky from the profile of a hill. It had a square mouldering tower, owning neither battlement nor pinnacle, and seemed a monolithic termination, of one substance with the ridge. (3,15)

Standing on a gloomy location, the structure lacks any decorative features or

magnificent summit. It has only an uninspired tower that is slowly wearing

away, with the word "mouldering" giving the impression of decline and

decay, and "termination" signifying inevitable dissolution. Built on the slant

of a hill, the church is subsumed into the mountain and thus has no

recognizable apex or individuality. Located on desolate ground, with no

tangible material presence, the decrepit building reflects the general spiritual

bleakness Hardy saw in Christianity.

Paradoxically, the graveyard is a place of sombre beauty. Set on the top

of the hill above the church, it contains

wild, untutored grass, diversifying the forms of the mounds it covered,-themselves irregularly shaped with no eye to effect;... Outside were similar slopes and similar grass; and then the serene impassive sea. (4,19)

Hardy interjects an ironic narrative voice, noting that the West Endelstow

graveyard seems a "delightful place to be buried in"( 4,18). The grass softens

the uneven protrusions caused by the coffins, and the graves themselves are

not set out in neat rows or encircled by sticks or stones. The only adornment

is "Nature in her most negligent attire", with the wild grass and sea reaching

out to the horizon, indicating an expansion of the mind and spirit (25, 197).

There is an indication that the grave inhabitants are experiencing what

106

Marshall Brown terms "a mysterious residual freedom of the spirit [that]

arises from the petrified corpse".190 The graveyard of West Endelstow and

the underground residents appear to possess a vital energy not usually

associated with the trappings of death.

Hardy introduces the conventional Gothic environment of a

graveyard and, defying expectation, imbues it with sense of grandeur. Nature

enhances the majesty of the burial ground and produces sublime emotions.

These feelings of awe and amazement amplify the soul and enlarge the

imagination, enabling the mind to acknowledge the existence of the

numinous. In utilizing Gothic tropes and atmosphere and merging them

with significant themes, Hardy offers other possibilities that verge on truth.

While death is the "the ultimate loss of form", it is not the end.191 In its

pursuit of the infinite and its "drive for inclusiveness" the Gothic is drawn to

life and death.192 Christianity promises heavenly life, but the Gothic offers

limitless opportunities.

In contrast, the cemetery located in the estate of Lord Luxellian has

"carefully tended" grass and "the few graves visible were mathematically

exact in shape and smoothness" (25, 197). The power and magnificence of

Nature is constrained by the fettered and encumbered arrangement of the

graves, negating any sense of the sublime. Hardy is protesting against

constraint in all forms, including what he saw as the constricting rules of

Christianity; the medieval laws that condemn a young girl like Elfride, who is

guilty only of a na Ve mistake.

190 M. Brown, 277.

191 Bayer-Berenbaum, 144.

192 Ibid.

In the final reckoning Elfride gains and loses four suitors; her quasi­

sweetheart, Felix Jethway, fiancees Stephen and Knight, and her husband

Lord Luxellian, although her departure from him is unexpected. Millgate

postulates that Death is her fifth and final successful suitor,192 as the novel

concludes with death and its associated symbols. There is the shiny coffin

plate, coronet, and the new casket, "bright and untarnished in the slightest

degree", across which the lord morbidly flings himself in a paroxysm of grief

(40, 308). Yet, the glittering coffin inscription and the flawless box that

contains Elfride's body will not remain unblemished for long. In a reminder

that the passage of time cannot be delayed, even the newest coffin in the

sealed crypt, that of previous Lady Luxellian, has "lost some of its lustre",

while

those of an earlier period showed bare wood, with a few tattered rags dangling therefrom. Earlier still the wood lay in fragments on the floor of the niche, and the coffin consisted of naked lead alone; whilst in the case of the very oldest, even the lead was bulging and cracking in pieces, revealing to the curious eye a heap of dust within (40, 308)

Elfride remains only one of a long line of Luxellians and her death is of little

consequence in the general passage of time. Soon her coffin will suffer the

same degradation as those of former generations.

Elfride's death is at odds with Hardy's earlier association of death with

grandeur. "Less an unknotting than an axe-stroke", the conclusion shows a

lack of preparation that cannot be completely blamed on Hardy's

unfamiliarity with the demands and limitations of serialization.193 At the

192 Millgate, His Career, 73.

193 Richard Taylor, Nelgected, 75.

108

same time, her demise further subverts the Gothic formula, as the heroine is

not expected to die.

As in his first novel, many of the episodes in A Pair of Blue Eyes are

"inadequately integrated with other elements of the narrative".195 The

merger of Gothic convention with serious Gothic themes meets with limited

success. He effectively utilizes the haunting figure of Mrs. Jethway to

symbolize the fatal past, and uses the obvious tropes of graves and tombs to

signify death. However, he still uses gratuitous Gothic gimmicks, and

employs a grotesque Gothic villainess to propel the plot forward.

The scenes from 'The Cliff without a Name' are some of his best,

although he does not explicitly connect feelings of terror and sublimity with

expansion. Through Knight's experience on the cliff, Hardy is able to

introduce the idea of an expansion, which is expressive of the Gothic. Still,

he remains unsure of how to consistently use Gothic conventions to express

his own sense of the Gothic.

Hardy wrote A Pair of Blue Eyes at the age of thirty-two, and his

private experience had not yet fully provided the "philosophy which he used

to control his later novels". 196 In the next decade and a half, his vision

matured, and in future novels he was able use Gothic conventions to allude

to the possible credence of a numinous power and real belief.

195 Wittenberg, "Early Hardy Novels", 156.

196 Blythe, xv.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE WOODLANDERS: AN AMALGAM OFSIMPLE AND SOPHISTICATED GOTHIC

CONVENTIONS

Penned at different dates, The Woodlanders is distinct from all of

Hardy's other novels. He conceived and partially wrote "a woodland story"

in the waning months of 1874, but set aside the draft in the new year.196 He

did nor resume work on the manuscript until more than ten years later, and

in the interim, published six other novels.

Hardy suspended the initial writing of his forest story in early 1875,

largely due to the success of his previous novel, Far From the Madding

196 Thomas Hardy, EL, 135.

110

Crowd. It was serialized in the CornhiU Magazine from January to December

1874, while the book was released in its entirety in November, one month

before the conclusion was printed in the monthly. Encouraged by the

generally favourable reviews of Far From the Madding Crowd, Leslie

Stephen-the editor of the Cor nhill-r equested another story from Hardy as

soon as possible. The author agreed, but instead of continuing in a pastoral

vein, he decided to set his next story in the city.197

While the success of Far From the Madding Crowd enabled Hardy to

marry Emma in September of 1874, it also prompted him to stop work on his

unfinished woodland manuscript and proceed in "a new and untried

direction".198 He wanted to avoid being classified as a rural or regional

writer; the fate that ultimately befell his friend and fellow poet, William

Barnes. Moreover, he had no desire to write "forever about sheepfarming",

so in January of 1875, he started The Hand of Ethelberta, an ironic comedy of

manners based in London.199 He wrote five more novels in the next decade

and in 1885 returned his attention to the original draft of what was to be

entitled The Woodlanders.200 The first of its twelve installments was

published in the May 1886 issue of Macmillan's Magazine, although Hardy

did not actually complete the novel until February of 1887. The entire book

was then rushed into print in March of 1887, one month before the last

serialized section appeared.

197 Millgate, Biography, 169.

198 Thomas Hardy, EL, 135.

199 Ibid., 173.

200 ibid.

Due to the disparity in the book's writing dates, the novel contains an

amalgam of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic conventions, showing

how Hardy changed his utilization of Gothic elements over a ten year period.

The Gothic villain and heroine retain many of their typical traits, but new

dimensions are added to their characters. Gothic themes remain constant, but

the manner in which they are presented is altered. Certain tropes that had

not changed since Walpole's time are reshaped.

The Woodlanders' plot and characters are reminiscent of the Gothic

conventions Hardy employed in his earlier novels, with crude villains and

standard stoiy-lines. In a typically Gothic plot, Grace is the de facto heroine of

the novel, endangered by the mysterious stranger, Edred Fitzpiers. An

interloper in Little Hintock, his mere presence arouses suspicions, but Mrs.

Charmond-another newcomer-presents a greater danger to the community.

As the imperious lady of the manor, her actions and attitudes disrupt the

pattern of village life and jeopardize the life of the resident hero, Giles.

Grace and Fitzpiers are modified Gothic characters. Unlike the typical

Radcliffian heroine, Grace is not entirely pleased to leave her finishing school

environment and return to her place of birth, with an attendant reduction of

status. Her return to Little Hintock unsettles and disappoints her, as she has

become an outsider in her native land. Fitzpiers is also a stranger, but his

presence in the village is more threatening.

J.O. Bailey argues that the doctor's character was created in 1874,

maintaining that it is "hardly conceivable" that an initial draft of the novel

was written "without having someone perform the function in the plot that

Fitzpiers does in the published work".201 William Rutland contends that the

doctor was constructed in 1885, in the later incarnation of The Woodlanders,

because at this time, Hardy was studying and thinking about the same kind of

philosophies that the doctor espouses in the novel. Bailey is correct, in that

Fitzpiers initially performs a simple role as a stock villain. However,

Rutland is not wrong either, for as the novel progresses, Hardy enlarges the

doctor's interests and revises his manner, allowing him to transcend his

original diabolical role. Fitzpiers is an amalgam, with dual production dates

of 1874 and 1885.

The traditional Gothic plot devices of The Woodlanders include

mysterious actions, seductions, secret encounters, and improbable deaths.

Fitzpiers has several private liaisons with different women before his

marriage and, after his union with Grace, embarks on an affair with Mrs.

Charmond. Later in the novel, Mrs. Charmond and Grace share a close

embrace, mirroring the lesbian incident between Cytherea Graye and Miss

Aldclyffe in Desperate Remedies. Fitzpiers and Grace have clandestine

meetings after Mrs. Charmond is implausibly killed by a spumed lover on

the continent. (Page wryly chuckles that the use of "a passionate globetrotter

from South Carolina is a fairly desperate remedy".202) Millgate points to the

"unexpectedness of such plot devices in a work written so late in Hardy's

career", suggesting that these elements of the novel were written in 1874.203

Suggestive of a later conception, Hardy handles thematic concerns

differently. In contrast to many of his other novels, time is not a haunting

201 Bailey, 1165; and Rutland, Thomas Hardy: A Study of His Writings and Their Background (Blackwell: Oxford, 1938), 212-3; qtd. in Bailey, 1165 .

202 Page, "Hardy's Deathbeds", 104.

203 Millgate, His Career, 249.

113

presence in The Woodlanders. The past still intrudes into the present-a

former promise vexes Mr. Melbuiy and Grace has difficulties reconciling her

recent life with her present-but there are no mysterious or potentially

scandalous events hidden in the past. The conventional Gothic tropes of

ciypts, tombs, and coffins are replaced by the figures of distorted and deformed

foliage. These Darwinian images of nature do not signify death, but point to

the possible existence of an inexplicable and incorporeal force: the numinous.

Hardy also integrates Gothic images with significant theme in multiple

sections of the novel. This unification is limited to single scenes in Hardy's

earlier novels-e.g., Manston's organ-playing incident in the early pages of

Deperates Remedies and The Cliff without a Name' chapter in A Pair of Blue

Eyes. The effective connection of Gothic figures with Gothic themes is

sustained for a longer period of time in The Woodlanderfp) CL^

By using a mixture of Gothic symbols and modes of representation,

Hardy is able to expand his imagination and explore the possibility of a higher

and unknowable power. At the same time, he allows that the mind plays a

part in perception, and supposed inexplicable events and experiences are

sometimes nothing more "than projections of the disturbed mind of the

perceivers".204 Under duress, ordinary sights and sounds can be

misconstrued and the mind can provide further analogous, but imaginary,

noises and images.

Hardy makes it clear that some of the apparently irregular aspects of

The Woodlanders are the results of misperception. The "grotesque image of

the tree vocalizing and shivering" by John South's dwelling is an illusion

terrifying only to him, and his demise is "too clearly demanded by the plot to

204 Hennessy, 26.

114

let us place too much stock in his terror".205 However the woods are more

enigmatic, sometimes painted as "soft, idyllic, and tender", but more

frequently as "dark, sinister, and full of dreadful mystery", with an emphasis

on "the gloomy, the deformed, and the diseased".206 By emphasizing the

crippled and disfigured, the author introduces tension right from the

beginning of the novel. A tangible sense of unease accompanies Mr. Melbury

and Grace as they wind their way though the "sylvan masses" of the trees and

tread "noiselessly over mats of starry moss", but then the grotesque intrudes

(7, 64). On the trees:

The leaf was deformed, the curve [of the branch] was crippled,...the lichen ate the vigour of the sap, and the ivy slowly strangles to death the promising sapling. (64-5)

Hardy clearly departs from the Romantics, who considered nature to be

"a beneficent, all-providing, Wordsworthian projection of the deity".207

Using his "genius of the macabre",208 Hardy subverts the pastoral ideology of

the novel, using twisted images to creates an aura of weird unreality and

alluding to the presence of an unknowable power that appears to collude and

collide with Nature. The spectral forest is truly Gothic-frightening,

disturbing, but also sublime-it alerts the reader to that mysterious other

which is real, but which evades language.

205 Jeffrey Cramer, "The Grotesque in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders", The Thomas Hardy Yearbook 8 (1978): 281; and William Matchett, "The Woodlanders, orRealism in Sheep's Clothing, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 9 (1955): 258.

206 Firor, 246; and John Goode, Thomas Hardy: The Offensive Truth (Oxford: Basil Bladwood, 1988), 95.

207 Bryan Curry, "Philosophical Pessimism and Gothic Convention in the Fiction of Thomas Hardy", (Unpub. Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1988), 8.

208 Ibid., 230.

115

Just as the manor house in Desperate Remedies is a place of terror,

mystery, and sexual awakening for Cytherea, so too are the forests for Grace.

Allying atmosphere with mood, Nature affects and reflect Grace's emotions.

Its uncontrolled fury is erotically energizing, although she is not consciously

aware of this specific effect. Further weaving an ironic erotic subtext into the

novel, Hardy constructs a death scene that offers a "perverse eroticism",210

while in Marty's final words there are intimations of necrophilia.

Confounding all expectations, there is no moment of epiphany in the

novel. Shelagh Hunter argues that Hardy offers a "morbid perception

without resolution".211 Ross Murfin contends that the novel's conclusion is

marred, due to Hardy's confusion about Giles and his self-destruction, while

Garson postulates that the author's "lack of commitment" to Grace results in

an "anticlimactic, even cynical" conclusion.212

Hardy admitted that "Grace never interested him much", and by

returning to Fitzpiers, she met "her retribution for rejecting Giles".213 The

author wanted his audience to realize that Grace was destined to live with an

unfaithful husband, although he rightfully feared that this point was lost on

most of his readers and some reviewers. He claimed that the "convention of

the libraries, etc." prevented him from stressing the doctor's continued

210 Robert Langbaum, Thomas Hardy In Our Time (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1995), 122.

211 Shelagh Hunter, 'The Implications of Impressionism", from chap, in Victorian Idyllic Fiction: Pastoral Strategies (London, 1984); reprinted in Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral N ovels, ed. R.P. Draper, Macmillan Education Casebook Series (Macmillan: Houndsmill, 1987), 196.

212 Ross Murfin, Swinburne, Hardy, Lawrence and the Burden of Belief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 137; and Garson, 80.

213 Carl Weber, Hardy and the Lady from Madison Square (New York: Kennikat Press, 1952), 89; and Thomas Hardy, EL, 289.

infidelity in the first 1887 publication of the novel.213 Still, he left the ending

unchanged and in later years, "often said that in some respects The

Woodlanders was his best novel".214

Some nineteenth-century critics praise his "perfectly wholesome" and

"sympathetic treatment of the landscape".215 For example:

the gorgeous autumn landscape of White-Hart Vale, surrounded by orchards lustrous with the reds of apple-crops, berries, and foliage .... In the poorest spots the hedges were bowed with haws and blackberries; acorns cracked underfoot, and the burst husks of chestnuts lay exposing their auburn contents (28, 189-90).

This passage highlights the fertility and beauty of Nature, but it does so with

mocking irony. The glut of berries and the spoiled chestnuts are the results

of nature's excess. There is an oppressive sense of fecundity, with even the

"poorest spots" heaving with produce. Hardy' subversiveness surfaces in

many areas of the novel.

Still, the Athehaeum proclaimed the novel to be a" masterly work" of

fiction, albeit with an "unsatisfactory ending". Wallace Williams of the

Academy called it one of Hardy's "best and most powerful" books, but also

"his most disagreeable", with R. H. Hutton of the Spectator agreeing with this

assessment. 216 Some of these same reviewers also criticized Hardy's low

213 Thomas Hardy, EL, 289.

214 Inid., 243.

215 R. H. Hutton, (Review of The Woodlanders), Spectator 26 March 1887:419-20; and Anonymous (Review of The Woodlanders), Saturday Review, 2 April 1887: Lxiii, 484-5; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 155 and 162.

215 Wallace, (Review of The Woodlanders), Academ y, 9 April 1887 XXXI: 251-2; and Hutton, (Review of The Woodlanders), Spectator, 26 March 1887:419-20; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The

moral tone, with Coventry Patmore condemning Fitzpiers as an

"exasperating scoundrel" and "flippant profligate".217

Certainly, in the beginning pages of the novel, Fitzpiers is characterized

as a stock Gothic villain. He is linked to Lucifer three times in the first four

chapters. Gossip from a larger nearby town tells of "certain books on some

mysterious black art", covertly ordered by the doctor and leading to "good

reason for supposing he has sold his soul to the wicked one".218 Neighborly

rumour in Little Hintock suggests that Fitzpiers is "in league with the devil"

(1, 28). A few pages later, Hardy specifically points out that midnight oil is

burning in the residence of that "young medical gentleman in league with

the devil" (2, 33).

Furthering his demonic image, Fitzpiers has an unnatural and morbid

"association with death and dissection".219 After he drops his pursuit of

Crammer's head, Fitzpiers presses Grace to view a slide under a microscope

and then informs her that she is looking at a slice of John South's brain. She

wonders, not unreasonably "how it should have got there" (18, 230).

However, Bailey contends that Hardy was "working away from the

more literal application of the Mephistophelian pattern he had employed in

Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 163 and 153.

217 Anonymous, (Review of The Woodlanders), The Athehaeum, 26 March, 1887:414; and Coventry Patmore (Review of The Woodlanders), St James Gazette, 2 April 1887: n.p.; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993),152 and 163.

218 Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders (1887), with an introduction by David Lodge (London: Macmillan 'New Wessex', 1975; reprint 1985), 4-46. All subsequent references to The Woodlanders w ill be parenthetical, with chapter and page number.

219 Jean Brooks, 221.

earlier books".220 D. H. Lawrence agrees that Fitzpiers is "less villainous and

more human" than Manston.221 Indeed, although the doctor is never going

to transform into the hero, the author revises the his character as the novel

progresses, allowing him to transcend his initial satanic role.

As late as November of 1885, Hardy's working title for the novel was

'Fitzpiers at Hintock', indicating "that this was, for him, the central source of

conflict and interest in the story".222 Portrayed as a "shabby Faust" who

trifles with the black arts and dabbles with the philosophies of Spinoza and

Plato,223 the doctor is given some admirable qualities. He is a skilled

physician, even though his careless diagnosis of South kills him, and he

never stops loving Grace in "his selfish way" (29,194). Harvey Webster

contends that Hardy treats Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond sympathetically, as if

"they cannot be blamed for following the laws of their own nature".224

Despite his perceived interest in the black arts, there is nothing Satanic

about Fitzpiers' physical appearance. He is "a finely formed, handsome man"

with "dark and impressive eyes". His face is "artistically beautiful... while

the classical curve of his mouth was not without a looseness in its close" (14,

105). Mallory postulates that Hardy provides the details about the lax mouth

220 Bailey, 1164.

221 D.H. Lawrence, "Study of Thomas Hardy (Le Gay Savaire), chap. in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays (!936), ed. Bruce Steele, The Works of D.H. Lawrence Series, eds. Boulton, James, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 47.

222 David Lodge, "Introduction" to The Woodlanders, by Hardy (London: Macmillian, 1974), xiii; and Millgate, Biography, 269.

223 Millgate, His Career, 252.

224 Harvey Webster, On a Darkling Plain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947; reprint London: Frank Cass and Co., 1964), 168.

to indicate moral weakness, although Fitzpiers is not troubled by the

immorality of his various amorous affairs.225

He also had no compunction about entering into what he admitted was

a "fiendish" agreement with Grammer Oliver, offering her ten pounds for

the rights to examine her head after her death (118,128). Although she

initially agreed, the old woman later had second thoughts, but when she

asked him to nullify the pact, he laughed "cruel-like" (17,120). Denying her

request under the guise of academic study, Fitzpiers told her that "science

could not afford to lose" her "fine brain" (17,120). However, when Grace

appealed to him, Fitzpiers destroyed the contract unhesitatingly. Willing to

do anything to oblige the young woman, he even refused a refund of the

money he had already paid to Grammer.

On her visit of intercession, Grace was first mistakenly ushered into a

room where Fitzpiers was napping on a couch. As she prepared to leave, she

glanced at him in a nearby mirror and "an indescribable thrill went through

her as she perceived that the eyes of the reflected image were open, gazing

wonderingly at her" (18,126). However, when she turned back to look at

him, his eyes were closed. Confused, Grace exited as silently as possible.

The narrator interjects that what Grace saw was no mystery. Fitzpiers

opened his eyes for a few seconds, but not "positively awake", immediately

reverted back to a state of slumber (18,126). Grace's departure roused him,

but as she reconsidered and retraced her steps up his path, a newly awakened

Fitzpiers met her and eagerly invited her in. After clearing up the matter of

Grammer's contract, he says in some puzzlement:

225 Thomas Mallory, 'The Devil and Thomas Hardy: A Study of the Manifestation of Sipematural in Hardy' Fiction:, unpub. Ph.D. diss, University of Illinois, 1987, 50.

'I fancied in my vision that you stood there. ... reflected in the glass. I thought, what a lovely creature! The design is for once carried out. Nature has at last recovered her lost union with the Idea! ... it made me scarcely able to distinguish between reality and fancy. I almost wept when I awoke and found that you had appeared to me in Time, but not in Space/ (18,128-9)

Fitzpiers believes that the object of his dream has magically

materialized. However, the image of Grace was imprinted upon his

subconscious mind during the brief time his eyes were open. He remains

oblivious to the very real fact that even when awake, he is still unable to

"distinguish between reality and fancy", projecting his desire onto a beautiful

vision who he believes to be the Platonic ideal of the female form. However,

no matter how lovely she is, Grace is only a timber-merchant7s daughter. As

in a typical Gothic novel, appearances are deceiving and things are not as they

seem.

Fitzpiers "preferred the ideal world to the real" (16,115). An

intellectual dilettante, he rattled off Spinoza's ideas one month ("Me and Not

Me"), embraced Plato the next ("Nature Has at last recovered her lost union

with the Idea!"), and at another time, accepted the optimism of an unnamed

"transcendental" thinker (6, 62; 18, 129).226 In the course of a year, his

academic interests passed through the "zodiac of the intellectual heaven"-

one month poetry, the next alchemy, then literature, metaphysics, astronomy,

and anatomy (17,122). It was during a period of "anatomical ardour" that he

offered to purchase Grammer's head (17,122).

Even before they met, Fitzpiers found Grace appealing. Displaying a

voyeuristic fascination with her, he used an eyeglass to spy upon her from a

226 In his notes to the Penguin Classics edition of The Woodlanders, James Gibson identifies the unnamed philosopher as "almost certainly Kant". 456.

distance. When she walked down a footpath near his lodging, he stealthily

and "steadily watched her out of sight" (16,115). Once they became slightly

acquainted, he took advantage of every opportunity to be near Grace when

she was in the forest. In a timber clearing, when a horse became restless in

his gig-hamess and frightened her, Fitzpiers was promptly and familiarly

"assisting Grace to descend" from the carriage-she was "very nearly lifted

down in his arms" (19,134). Returning to the same spot in the evening to

look for a lost purse, she stirred up a fire to get more light and then screamed

at the sight of his "illumined face", unnaturally fixed "precisely in the spot

where she had left him" a few hours previously (19,137). In a strange and

sinister manner, Fitzpiers remained hidden and silent as Grace approached

him, but when his sudden presence alarmed her, he "lost not a moment in

rising and going to her side. ... actually supporting her with his arm" (19,137).

In addition, when the unmarried women of Hintock attempted to cast a

Midsummer's Eve spell- an "ungodly performance" that would help them

identify their prospective husbands-Fitzpiers "intently" observed Grace and

ensured that she ran into his arms when she scrambled down the hill with

the others (20, 140). He told her he would keep her "all our two lives", but

after Grace's rebuff, the doctor pursues another village girl and "it was

daybreak before Fitzpiers and Suke Damson re-entered Little Hintock" (20,

143,144).

Fitzpiers realizes that socially, he can never be intimate with Grace,

and "anything like matrimonial intentions towards her ... would be absurd"

(19,130). Instead, he views Grace as "an object of contemplation" who

would serve to energize his soul and relieve the boredom he suffers in Little

Hintock. The village

may have beauty, grandeur, salubrity, convenience; but if it lacks memories it will ultimately pall upon him who settles here without opportunity of intercourse with his kind.

In such circumstances, maybe, an old man dreams of an ideal friend, ... a young man ... likewise, by some humour of the blood will probably lead him to think rather of an ideal mistress, and at length the rustle of a woman's dress, the sound of her voice, or the transmit of her form across the field of his vision, will enkindle his soul with a flame that blinds his eyes (17,123).

Little Hintock is an attractive place, with moments of brilliance and

sublimity. However, for Fitzpiers, it is "a miserable little hole" (35, 229).

There are no shared memories, no learned medical men to exchange notes

with, no urbane men to engage in conversation, and no beautiful socialites to

admire. Even his own interests fail to erase the ennui of life in such an

isolated place. Having no previous opportunity to meet Mrs. Charmond, he

fixates on Grace. She assumes the shape of "an ideal mistress", a woman he

can enjoy a "mild flirtation" with (17, 124). But even with all her charms, he

wishes that Grace is the secret owner of the Hintock House mansion.

During the course of winter, through seemingly chance encounters

lasting no more than a minute or so, a "mutual interest" emerges between

Fitzpiers and Grace (19,131). By springtime they are no longer mere

acquaintances, but friends. Hardy's innocuous portrait of the changing of the

seasons turns into a form of covert eroticism, with the female fertility of "the

unsealing of buds" and the seminal "rush of sap in the veins of the trees"

constituting a prelude to the pair's future marital consummation (19, 131).

By this time, Fitzpiers had became "irretrievably committed in heart to

Grace", forcing him to rethink his matrimonial intentions towards her

(20,139). He "was enchanted enough to fancy" that "the Idea had for once

fulfilled itself in the objective substance" (20, 139-40). His initial dream-

influenced assessment of Grace was accurate: she was the embodiment of the

ideal woman. Carried "away on the wave of his desire", he asked Mr.

Melbury for permission to come courting (22, 148).

Even though Grace raises "genuine emotions" in his heart, Fitzpiers

senses that his impulses are overruling his judgment (23, 155). While Grace

feels she is too good for Giles, Fitzpiers in turn feels superior to her and

privately derides her merchant class. He struggles with the fact that no matter

how educated or cultivated Grace is, he is still "endangering his professional

and social chances by an alliance with the family of a simple countryman" (24,

162). Indeed, once she overcomes his objections to a public marriage, his fears

are borne out. After his union with Grace, the town people no longer treat

him with deference and his professional reputation plummets.

Just as Fitzpiers had never viewed her as a wife, Grace had "never

regarded him in the light of a destined husband" (22,151). She never even

considered it until her father told her that the doctor had asked his consent to

marry her. She was unable to explain to her father how Fitzpiers possessed

an inexplicable "compelling power" over her, "an almost psychic influence",

similar to the domination of Manston over Cytherea in Desperate Remedies

(18,129; 22,151). However, when not in his company, his influence over her

diminished and she often regretted the confusing emotions he awakened in

her (22,151).

Grace is bewildered by the feelings his presence evokes and is

confused by the emotional aspects of their relationship. She has no words to

describe desire; indeed Fitzpiers' touch "stirred her feelings indescribably" and

his mere presence excited her (22,151). On the occasion of their first kiss,

she "broke from him trembling ... and turned aside, hardly knowing how

things had advanced to this point". During the course of the afternoon, she

had somehow become engaged to the "handsome, coercive, irresistible

Fitzpiers" (23, 156).

Once her initial surprise passed, Grace found the prospect of marrying

Fitzpiers appealing. She knew that she had been originally promised to Giles,

and had she remained in Little Hintock, she would have happily married

him. However, he father wanted more for her and sent her off to be

educated. At the end of her schooling, Grace was not entirely happy to return

back to her home in Little Hintock; a "small place...[where] you'd need to

have a candle and lantern to find it if ye don't know where 'tis" (1, 25) On

her final journey back home, while Giles saw apple trees and farms, she

recalled the " broad lawn in the fashionable suburb of a fast city, amid which

bounding girls ... were playing at games with laughter and chat". Her friends

at finishing school were the same young women "whose parents Giles would

have addressed with a deferential Sir or Madam" (6, 56). So she felt privately

that she was too good for him.

Fitzpiers, on the other hand, was a "specimen of creation altogether

unusual in that locality" and "the possibilities of a refined and cultivated

inner life" were pleasant concepts to contemplate (23, 156; 18, 125). Her father

was gratified, for he had invested a significant investment of time and money

into Grace's education. Although he did not dislike Giles, he wanted more

for his daughter and was not content to let her sink back into the old Hintock

ways. He was delighted that through her marriage she would "be restored to

the society" she had "been taken away from" (22,151).

Mr. Melbury also respects Fitzpiers' noble ancestry, although Grace is

more intrigued than impressed by his past. Paternally, the Fitzpiers' family

were lords of the manor for hundreds of years and founded the nearby village

of Oakbuiy Fitzpiers. On his maternal side, he was connected with the

aristocratic Baxbys, although the fortunes of both families had long since

declined. When Grace first saw Fitzpiers, he was dozing on a couch "like a

recumbent figure within some canopied mural tomb of the fifteenth century

(18,125). This glimpse of him prefigured her visit to the Gothic ruins of

Sherton Castle, where Fitzpiers' maternal ancestors had lived. Only a few

vaultings and arches of the medieval castle had survived and now they were

used as a shelter for a neighbouring farmer's calves, who cooled "their thirsty

tongues by licking the quaint Norman carving, which glistened with the

moisture" (23, 154). As she views the degradation of his ancestors' home,

reduced to serving as a cattle bam, "the aspect of Fitzpiers assumed in her

imagination the hues of a melancholy romanticism" (23, 154).

A mined Gothic medieval castle possesses vestigial traces of culture

and mystery, and its slow obliteration can produce emotions that mere

language cannot encompass; feelings of sublimity. There is a concomitant

allure attached to persons who have a direct link to an ancient ruin, but at the

same time, a crumbling palace represents failed ambition and squandered

splendor. The degeneration of Sherton Castle highlights the steep descent in

the Fitzpiers fortune, but the contrast between the medieval days-when the

Baxbys, Fitzpiers' maternal ancestors, were amongst the greatest people in

their small realm-and the present-where the decrepit vaultings are the only

material reminders of the family's former status-only serves to increase

Grace's interest in Fitzpiers.

As for Mr. Melbury, he still holds a "touching faith in members of

long-established families ... irrespective of their personal condition or

character". He blithely assumes that, since his daughter's suitor is "descended

from a line ... once among the greatest", nothing could "be amiss" in their

relationship (22, 152). Grace and her father fail to recognize that Fitzpiers'

blue blood is diluted.

Illustrating the danger of trusting a family line, rather than an

individual, trouble occurs during their engagement when Grace sees Suke

Damson leaving Fitzpiers' lodging at dawn. She is unaware of their previous

intimacy, so when the dissembling doctor smoothly and logically explains the

reason for her early morning presence, Grace's suspicions disappear.

Although she experiences "a curious fatefulness" and is unable suppress her

feelings of anxiety, she is ultimately seduced by the idea of being the "heroine

of an hour. ... proud, as a cultivated woman, to be the wife of a cultivated

man" (24,164,163).

Grace considered Fitzpiers "greater than herself' and more "her ruler ...

than her equal, protector, and dear familiar friend" (24, 158). While such

feelings do not preclude marriage, "awe towards a superior being" requires a

reciprocating "tender solicitude ... of love", otherwise such reverence will

disappear (28, 188). While Fitzpiers loves Grace "in his own selfish way",

whether or not she loved Fitzpiers at the time their marriage, "she was pretty

sure to do so in time" (29,194; 23,156).

However, once the initial novelty of the marriage passes on both sides,

no fellow feeling springs up to take its place. Grace's affection for Fitzpiers

never gets a chance to grow, for soon after meeting Mrs. Charmond he begins

to talk to Grace with "the scrupulousness civility of mere acquaintanceship"

and he no longer feigns interest about "her little doings" (23, 156; 28, 187).

Easily bored, Fitzpiers suffers from a short attention span. Although he

still loves Grace, he feels compelled to continually seek out new emotions

and experiences, so when his intercourse with his wife becomes familiar, he

looks elsewhere for fresh stimuli. Mrs. Charmond's request that he attend to

127

her "at once" comes at an opportune time and sparks his interest, as he claims

to have "had a presentiment that this woman and I were to be better

acquainted" (25,173).

When Fitzpiers arrives at Mrs. Charmond's dwelling, Hintock House,

he expects to treat an injured or ill woman. Instead, he sees "by the light of

the shaded lamp",

an elegant figure reclining upon a couch in such a position as not to disturb a pile of magnificent hair on the crown of her head. A deep purple dressing-gown formed an admirable foil to the rich brown of her hair-plaits; her left arm, which was naked nearly up to the shoulder, was thrown upwards, and between the fingers of her right hand she held a cigarette while she idly breathed from her delicately curled lips a thin stream of smoke towards the ceiling. (26, 175)

Her presentation could not be more theatrical or rehearsed. Her experience

on the stage has taught her how to make a dazzling impression, with her

clothing complementing her colouring. However, the "magnificent hair" is

not her own, but Marty's. Moreover, the smoke wafting upward seems an

affectation, especially in tight of her claim that is just learning how to smoke.

As a former actress though, she understands the importance and power of

illusion.

Seeing Mrs. Charmond in this staged pose, the doctor momentarily

forgets his errand. As he views the attractive woman, with her beautiful

head of hair and elegant manner of dress, he recognizes the artificiality and

fantasy of the moment. "The sentiment and essence of the moment were

indescribably familiar" to him because Mrs. Charmond's theatrical display

subconsciously reminds him of his first meeting with Grace, when she

appeared to him tike a dream (26, 175).

Mrs. Charmond soon replaces Grace as the object of his interest and

her presence at Hintock House causes him to change his plans. Fitzpiers had

planned to buy a practice in Budmouth for eight hundred pounds and had

suggested to Grace that her father help him buy it. Amenable to the prospect

of moving away, she thought the matter was settled, but after Fitzpiers met

Mrs. Charmond, he decided that he did not want the practice. Even though

the surgery now only costs seven hundred and fifty, he considered it "too

large a sum" (27,183).

Mrs. Charmond does not have aristocratic blood, but her wealth

confers status. As an added attraction, Fitzpiers discovers that they have

shared memories. When she was in her "girlhood" and he was "an

impecunious student" living in Heidelberg, they had became infatuated with

each other (26, 177). However, her mother interfered and she had to leave

without saying her farewells to him. Fitzpiers says they were predestined to

meet again after such an unfortunate parting, and in a burst of enthusiasm,

tells her: "You may have outgrown the foolish impulsive passions of your

early girlhood. I have not outgrown mine" (26, 177).

Fitzpiers past feelings her had been "evanescent" at best, based on one

evening's conversation (26, 179). His resurgent feelings for her are not based

on her seductive powers, but on her proximity and her status. Mrs.

Charmond is neither a femme fatale, nor an imperious Gothic dowager, but is

a sad and lonely twenty-eight year old widow with "a heart capable of quick,

extempore warmth - a heart which could indeed be passionately and

imprudently warm on certain occasions" (5, 54). Not deliberately disruptive,

it is her ignorance of the woodland code and her financial strength that

makes her dangerous.

Annoyed at Giles previous refusal to back his loaded wagon down the

road so her carriage could pass, she punished him for his perceived slight by

tearing down the life-holders' cottages (15,108). She did not understand that

Giles had "a moral right" to live in his father's cottage for the rest of his life

(15,108). Since the leases had lapsed, she saw "no reason for disturbing the

natural course of things", ignoring the fact that in the "natural course" of

time, Giles or his father would have renewed their life-hold.227

By consorting with Fitzpiers, Mrs. Charmond is also driving a

"destructive wedge between the kinship loyalties" that are "sacred to the

woodland code".228 Initially she toys with him, enjoying their casual

flirtation and doing nothing to dampen his ardour. Only when Mr. Melbury

visits Hintock House and implores her not to harm Grace does she become

aware of how improper her conduct is. At the same time, she realizes that

she has passionate feelings for Fitzpiers, and further perceives now that "a

fascination had led her on", Subconsciously, "her soul was being slowly

invaded by a delirium,... she was becoming ... an animated impulse only, a

passion incarnate" (32, 213).

Like Grace, Mrs. Charmond is fascinated by Fitzpiers and has

unwittingly fallen in love with him. Upset and troubled by Mr. Melbury, she

ventures into the woods to clear her mind and encounters Grace, who is also

unsettled. Impulsively falling into conversion, Mrs. Charmond stresses, as

much to herself as to Grace, that she does not love Fitzpiers and only "trifled

with him" (33, 217). The scorned wife, who had called the doctor a "foolish

man - the plaything of a finished coquette", suddenly realizes that the

22715,109; and Peter Widdowson, Thomas Hardy (Plymouth: Northcote House in association with the British Council, 1996), 55.

228 Jean Brooks, 223.

situation is changed and that Mrs. Charmond really does care for Fitzpiers (33,

218). Instead of despising her, Graces finds herself pitying her. The older

woman will "suffer most" for loving Fitzpiers, because, as Grace has learned

from personal experience, "he will get tired of you soon and then you may

wish you had never seen him" (33, 217).

Still insisting that Fitzpiers was only a friend, Mrs. Charmond turns

away and Grace resumes her own course. However, the "old trees, which

once were landmarks had been felled or blown down", and the formally

small "bushes, ... now long and overhanging", are no longer familiar" (33,

218). With a start, Grace realizes that she is lost. Although she grew up in the

forest, she has been away for a long time. As the darkness closes in and the

"night-moan" of the wind begins to sound, she becomes actively frightened

(33, 218). She stumbles into Mrs. Charmond, who cries that she too "has lost

my way" (33, 219). This statement takes on a much larger resonance-Mrs.

Charmond is indeed lost, not only physically, but emotionally, for she has

fallen hopelessly in love with another woman's husband.

Clinging to each other for warmth, they ensconce themselves in the

nook of a tree. Reflecting the distressed state of the women, the trees above

them appear "funereal". The noise of the wind rustling through their

branches is likened to the sound of "chanted dirges", foreshadowing

ominous news (33, 220). Millgate and Garson both note the similarity of this

scene to the lesbian episode in Desperate Remedies. However, Grace and

Mrs. Charmond both have heterosexual relationships and, as Rosemarie

Morgan contends, "there is nothing bi-sexual" about Mrs. Charmond.229

229 Millgate, His Career, 249; Garson, 87; and Morgan, 162.

Still, there is a sense of close intimacy in Mrs. Charmond's furs, which

"consoled Grace's cold face", while the older woman takes "luxurious comfort

in opening her heart" and unburdening herself to her lover's wife (33, 220).

"Thunderstruck by a revelation transcending her utmost suspicion", Grace

exclaims: " 'O, my great God ... He's had you! Can it be - can it be?' " (33,221).

In her shock, Grace releases Mrs. Charmond and the miserable

elements immediately start to pummel her. In an alliance of atmosphere

with emotion, the weather affects and reflects her mood. As the "deep

darkness circled her about" and "the cold lips of the wind kissed her", Grace

physically feels cold (33, 221). The blackness and chill mirror the bleak

interior state of her mind as she attempts to take in Mrs. Charmond's

confession, while the icy gust that touches her Ups reflects the frosty and

uncaring reception that she has become accustomed to from her husband.

John Sutherland suggests that Grace's shock is due to the fact that the

older woman has confessed to more than adultery. After all, as an actress,

she has had many lovers and is "no ingenue".230 He postulates that Fitzpiers

had overcome her and reduced her to the "degraded condition of a sexual

slave".231 When Mrs. Charmond asks Grace if she "means war", Sutherland

posits that perhaps the older woman is implying that, were she able "to face

the horrible publicity", Grace would have grounds to sue for divorce under

the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act.232

Mrs. Charmond concerns about exposing a secret she should have

"kept silent as the grave" may be warranted (33, 221). If Grace provided

230 John Sutherland, "What does Mrs. Charmond say to Grace?", chap. in Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 187.

231 Ibid.

232 33,221; Sutherland, 187; and Rosemarie Morgan, 134.

evidence of her husband's " Sodomy or Bestiality, or of Adultery coupled

with such cruelty", she could have obtained a "Divorce a Mensa et Thoro".233

Yet, even if Grace was unaware of this law, or if she had knowledge of it and

kept silent, she would still realize that Fitzpiers had committed perverted

sexual acts with someone else. It would be highly unlikely that she would

countenance a reconciliation with her husband.

Grace already knows that Fitzpiers tied to her about the reason for

Suke's early morning presence at his house prior to their marriage. She

realizes that "she has made a frightful mistake" and experiences an "acute

regret" that the "homely sylvan life of her father ... would probably be denied

her" (29, 193; 33, 215). When Fitzpiers deserts her to follow Mrs. Charmond to

the continent, Mr. Melbury tells Grace that "she need have no further

concern about Fitzpiers' return; that she would shortly be a free woman" (37,

246). Her affection for Giles is reawakened, but just as she romanticized

Fitzpiers before marrying him, she makes the same mistake with the apple

farmer.

Grace began to view Giles with a new reverence, as he "rose upon her

memory as the fruit-god and the wood-god in alternation" (39, 256; 38, 248).

Her "fancy wove about him a more romantic tissue", but their renewed

romance came to an abrupt end, as Mr. Melbury returned with the news that

Grace was required to remain Fitzpiers' wife, at least in name (38, 248). First

her father persuaded her to accept Fitzpiers, then he told her that she need

have nothing more to do with him. He urged her to pursue Giles, but then

suggested reconciliation with Fitzpiers. No longer believing in her father's

"judgment and knowledge", she refuses to heed his request. Like a typical

233 Qtd. in Morgan, 134, from the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act.

post-Radcliffian Gothic heroine, she defies parental authority and heads into

"the depths of the woods" (40, 266). In a regression to early Gothic fiction, the

forests become the locus of terror.

The plantations were always weird at this hour - more spectral. ... The smooth surfaces of glossy plants came out like weak, lidless eyes: there were strange faces and figures from expiring light that had somehow wandered into the canopied obscurity ... peeps of the sky between the trunks were like sheeted shapes, and on the tips of the boughs sat faint cloven tongues. (40, 266)

Nature alone is not grotesque, but the forced combination of nature

and man is. At twilight, eerie Gothic images emerge and strange associations

are made. The lustrous leaves of plants transform into grotesque "weak,

lidless eyes", turning a benign plant into a grotesque representation of

deformity. Ghostly figures flit underneath the trees, as if unable to escape

the overhanging branches. The shadowy figures and disturbing silhouettes

that linger where only a cloudy haze should be visible, and the "strange

faces" and "sheeted shapes" strike discordant notes. The image of "cloven

tongues" is weird, although the phrase comes from the second book of Acts,

when the Holy Spirit settled on the apostles in the form of "cloven tongues

like as of fire".235 In this scene Hardy is not referring to the heavenly

Christian domain, but to an otherworldly realm. Rather than engendering

terror, the suggestive ghostly presences and queer images augment the aura of

unreality.

Grace's "fear was not imaginative or spiritual" and she "heeded these

impressions but little" (40, 266). The grotesque and macabre figures did not

234 Thomas Hardy, LY, 58.

235 King James, Acts 2:3.

134

bother her, but she was alarmed by the return of her wandering husband. Her

fright of him had previously manifested itself in feverish dreams, when she

would cry: " 'O - he [Fitzpiers] is coming!'... and in her terror" jump "clean

out of the bed upon the floor" (37, 245). When he reappeared in Little

Hintock, her nightmare became her reality, and in order to escape him, she

physically fled. As she passed though the woods, she fancied "that she could

hear, above the sound of her strumming pulse", Fitzpiers entering the

grounds of her father's house (40, 266). The surreal landscape, with its eerie

and ghostly shapes, holds less fear for her than the possible physical presence

of her errant husband.

Logically, Grace knows that her respite can only be temporary, as she

has " 'vowed myself [to Fitzpiers] ... and cannot be released' " (41,273).

Emotionally, she cannot blind herself to the attraction Giles holds for her.

She tells him that she has feelings for him that she has " 'felt for no other

living man, what I shall never feel for a man again' " (41, 273). Giles returns

her affection, but although she yearns to let him into the cottage to spend the

night with her, she is still bound by Christian views of morality. Despite the

example of the woodland creatures she has viewed-the "small members of

the animal community ... neighbours who knew neither law nor sin", she

" 'must behave as I do behave, and keep that vow ' " (41, 272, 273).

Grace is tom between religious doctrine and erotic impulses, and this

strife manifests itself physically in the night time storm. With the wind

howling and the rain pounding on the roof, it seems as if some supernatural

being was attempting to break into her dwelling.

It was difficult to believe that no opaque body ... was trampling and climbing over the roof, making branches creak, springing out of the trees upon the chimney, popping its head into the flue, and shrieking and blaspheming at every corner of the walls....the assailant was a

135

spectre which could be felt but not seen. She had never before been struck with the deviltry of a gusty night in a wood, because she had never been so entirely alone in spirit as she was now. (41, 273-4)

Savage weather, weird chimerical forces, and Grace's own confused feelings

combine to create a sublime atmosphere. In an alliance of atmosphere and

mood, the fury of the storm frightens Grace, but also reflects her own

emotions. Never having been alone in the woods during a storm, she is

alarmed by the violence of the tempest and struck by her sense of isolation,

but it is not mere solitude that disturbs her. Langbaum suggests that the

woods "symbolize her erotic unconsciousness", and the external turmoil

mirrors her internal tumultuous erotic impulses.237 Her desire is analogous

to the elusive spectre that can be "felt but not seem", assailing her with a

passion barely held in check. She hears agonizing "shrieking and

blaspheming", while the pounding, howling, and screaming sounds increase

the sense of unreality. The striking invasion of sound and her confused

emotions combine to temporarily blur her "clear intentions", and although

pausing for a moment in "agonizing thought", she opens the door and calls

to Giles (41, 274).

The darkness outside is "intense" and the rainfall extremely "heavy",

while the wind causes the "wild brandishing" of tree branches (41, 275). The

savagery of the elements reflects Grace's emotions, for "like violence,

repressed sexual desire accumulates energy that sooner or later bursts

forth".238 First, she "cried loudly" for him, then again an entreaty, "with the

full strength of her voice, and without any of the shamefacedness that had

237 Langbaum, In Our Time, 121.

238 Girard, 35.

136

characterized her first cry" (41, 275). The final desperate appeal after his

continued refusal-" 'Come to me dearest! 1 don't mind what they say or what

they think of us anymore' "-is an indication of Grace's extreme longing for

him ( 41, 275). Throwing off the shackles of Christian morality, she no longer

cares about her vows. However, Giles, who once "thought how hopelessly

blind to propriety he was beside" Grace, refuses (38, 253).

The next morning, Grace views the evidence of Nature's fury. The

violence and desolation resulting from Nature's fierce acts deepens Grace's

already despondent mood into utter despair (42, 276). Reflecting her

depression, there was

an old beech, with vast arm-pits, and great pocketholes in its sides where branches had been removed....trees dose together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with wounds resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows... the rotting stumps [of others]... rising from their mossy setting like black teeth from green gums. (42, 276)

Furthering the image of decay, the evening sun throws macabre "gory hues"

upon the shedding leaves of the beech (42, 476). Again and again, Hardy

comes back to the Gothic nightmare, the contorted, distorted, deformed and

diseased. The violent, macabre and repulsive images further increase the

sense of grotesque fantasy.

Hardy commented, "nature herself is absolutely indifferent to justice",

but in a Darwinian universe, she sometimes "appears actively hostile". 239

Nature's rain and wind produce the cold and wet condition that damage

Giles' already fragile health. When Grace realizes his life is in danger, all fear

of Fitzpiers is dismissed and she gives no further thought to concealment.

239 Hardy, letter to Sidney Trist, 18 May 1910, CL TV, 9; and Merryn Williams, "A Post-Darwinian Viewpoint of Marriage", chap. in Thomas Hardy and Rural England (London: n.p., 1972); reprinted in Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels, ed. R. Draper, 171.

137

She rushes to get medical assistance from the one man who has "the brain

most likely" to save Giles, if such an act is possible (42, 279). However,

providing a gruesome and morbid foreshadowing of Giles' death, the

"puddles and damp ruts" that she encounters on her journey have "a cold

corpse-eyed luminousness" (42, 280).

Subversively, the actions of outsiders cause the death of Giles, the

native. Not realizing the "totemic significance" of the grotesque tree that

torments Giles' elderly father, Fitzpiers orders it to be chopped down, causing

the death of the old man.240 Mrs. Charmond then refuses to renew the life-

holding on the cottage and evicts Giles, while later, Grace ousts him from his

shelter. Both women contribute to his demise, but Giles' adherence to an

outmoded moral code is self-destructive.241 His death constitutes a

subversive mockery of Victorian views on morality, as "the cultivated

woman responded with loving-kindness, the natural man with suicidal

discretion" 242

However, Giordano disagrees with the view that Giles sacrificed

himself on the altar of social convention. He wonders how Giles could "deny

himself the erotic satisfaction he consciously seeks and needs", by declining to

come to the cottage even when Grace calls him.243 He speculates that Giles

harbours an unperceived enmity towards Grace. While he is ostensibly

preserving her virtue, his refusal to join her might be an "unconscious

240 Lodge, "Introduction", xiv.

241 Casagrande, Unity, 151.

242 Ibid., 150-1.

243 Frank Giordano, "I'd Have My Life Unbe". Thomas Hardy's Self-Destructive Characters (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984), 157.

138

retaliation against her" for marrying Fitzpiers instead of him.244 Far from

sacrificing himself, he takes upon himself the role of martyr, making Grace's

suffering appear insignificant in the face of his death.

Grace declares to her husband that he could draw "the extremest

inference" from her statement that Giles "is everything to me" (43, 284). She

allows him to assume that she and Giles were intimate, which suggests that

her turn to Giles was sincere.245 Ironically, "Grace's finest act is a lie about her

purity",246 but any personal satisfaction she gains from this falsehood is

denied when she admits the truth to Fitzpiers. Although Marty had already

told him that Grace's escapade in the woods was harmless, he is still gratified

by her confession and begins his campaign to win her back.

Flis early attempts to revive their marriage are unsuccessful. Grace has

changed from the impressionable and pitiable "deserted girl-wife" of Fitzpiers

into a more resigned practical woman of "tougher fibre" (33, 217: 38, 250).

Questioning Christian sacrament, she wonders "how far a person's conscience

might be bound" by marriage vows if they did not realize the full import at

the time of making them (47, 312). She recognizes that she is no longer

obligated to remain with Fitzpiers, after the way he has treated her. In a

renunciation of the sanctity of marriage, she does not believe that "God really

did join" her and Fitzpiers together in the first place (47, 312). Furthermore,

the enigmatic qualities that first attracted her to him are useless. His

romantic past, quasi-academic studies and beliefs-none of them is of any

tangible or material value and she suggests that he "concentrate on your

244 Ibid.

245 Casagrande, "Shifted", 122.

246 Matchett, 251.

139

profession, and give up those strange studies that used to distract you so

much" (46, 304). He gives her those assurances, declaring that he is now a

"practical man" (46, 304).

Fitzpiers does love Grace "in his way, and had by no means ceased to

love her" during his infatuation with Mrs. Charmond (29, 194). He writes, "I

have never loved any woman alive or dead as I love, respect, and honour

you at this present time", and tells her face to face, " 'I love you more than

ever I loved you in my life' " (45, 296, 300). However, Grace retains her love

for a dead man, telling Fitzpiers, "My heart is the grave with Giles" (45, 301).

The doctor is content to wait for the time being; indeed, he intentionally

cultivates the "strange and mournful pleasures" produced by Grace's

renunciation of him. He finds "solace" in "the soft miseries" she inflicts

upon him (45, 298). Constantly searching for new concepts and sensations,

he "would not willingly let die" these foreign and fascinating feelings (45,

297).

While he takes a certain satisfaction in these emotional tribulations,

his cry as he surveys part of Grace's dress in the man-trap was "like one in

corporeal agony. In his "misery", he falls to the ground, "writhing and

rocking", as if in physical pain (47, 313). Fitzpiers' suffering is real, but Grace

hears the loud "voice of his distress" and quickly acts to relieve his fear (47,

313). He nearly sheds tears of "delight and the relief at the horror of his

apprehensions" not being realized (47, 314). He seized her, "pressed her to

his breast, and kissed her passionately", murmuring, "you are mine" (47, 314,

315). Having overheard his lamentations when he thought she was injured,

Grace admits that he must indeed care for her, and they make plans to start a

new life together at a new practice Fitzpiers has purchased in the Midlands.

140

Bailey contends that their "final reconciliation depended upon his

abandoning those abstruse studies", as Grace suggested .248 Schweik

speculates that Grace's primary reasoning behind her return to Fitzpiers is her

desire for "some semblance of the common life and ordinary sexuality which

she had temporarily renounced" after Giles death.249 Drake assumes that

they can "resume their marital relationship with some prospect of quietly

growing devotion ... and at the novel's end they go forth from the Eden of

little Hintock ... like a chastened Adam and Eve."250

However, the doctor's fickle nature is well documented. He dabbles in

various intellectual and philosophical studies, and has an inability to remain

faithful to one woman. He became bored with Grace soon after their

marriage, and the attentive interest he took in the 'injured' Mrs. Charmond

eventually turned stale. Once the novelty of his reunion with Grace wears

off, his ennui will return, and he will again engage in a search for fresh

stimulation.

Moreover, responding to a query about adapting the novel into a play,

Hardy replied: "The ending of the story - hinted at rather than stated-is that

the heroine is doomed to an unhappy life with an inconstant husband".251

He alleged that "literary convention"252 prevented him from asserting that

247 Fisher, 141.

248 J.O. Bailey, 1167.

249 Robert Schweik, "The Ethical Structure of Hardy's The Woodlanders,” A rchiv 211(1974): 44.

250Robert Drake, Jr., 'Traditional Pastoral", 257.

251 Thomas Hardy, EL, 289.

252 Ibid.

Grace was destined to live with an unfaithful husband, but such a conclusion

is implied in Mr. Melbury's assessment after he ascertains his daughter's

desire to remain with her errant husband. He laments to himself, " 'the

woman walks and laughs somewhere at this very moment whose neck he'll

be coling next year ... as he did Felice Charmond's last year; and Suke

Damson's the year afore!'... It's a forlorn hope for her" (48, 320). Grace's father

hints at the inevitability of Fitzpiers' continuing womanizing, but "the

matter is not made manifest", and many of Hardy's readers believed that

Fitzpiers had been reformed.252

The novel does not end with the couple, but with Marty. Waiting at

Giles' grave, she realizes that her former fellow mourner is now "in the arms

of another man than Giles", and echoing Fitzpiers' claim of possession just a

few pages earlier, whispers, "you are mine" (48, 323). Taylor claims that "a

philosophical compromise is found in Marty's morbid consolation", but

Marjorie Garson notes that her words about Grace are "strikingly graphic ...

in view of the fact that if Grace were in Giles' arms, she would be embracing a

corpse".253 Equally startling is the necrophilic intimations in Marty's

assertion that Giles is now all hers. Just as Grace had a depraved erotic

experience with a dead man, so too will Marty.

Squires asserts that "Marty, Giles and Grace tends to deny life" while

"the passion of Mrs. Charmond and Fitzpiers asserts life...and it becomes,

finally, more attractive to the reader".254 Yet, Mrs. Charmond is a sad

character who inspires pity, while Fitzpiers is not an admirable character.

252 Weber, Hardy and the Lady, 90.

253 Garson, 92.

254 Squires, 190.

Originally identified with the demonic, he is widely rumored to deal in the

black arts. He is slightly unnatural, with his weird interest in brains. Like the

devil, he has a transfixing power, although there are no other indications that

he possesses supernatural ability. In fact, as the novel progresses, the satanic

aspects of his charter are muted. A physically attractive man, with a pretty, or

artistic face, rather than a powerful one, he has a large appetite for physical

intercourse. There is nothing wrong with his intellect or his professional

ability, but he is not practical.

Although shallow and promiscuous, with a certain resemblance to the

devil, Fitzpiers is not a traditional Gothic villain. He experiences varying

human emotions, including lust and passion, apprehension and satisfaction,

joy and anguish, but little remorse. With his superior attitude and pride, it

does not enter his mind to feel sorry for his actions or seek forgiveness,

because he has no sense of guilt, no moral compass. He savours the

sorrowful and melancholy emotions that result from the transient loss of

Grace. His suffers real distress, but then relief, when he discovers that she

has not been hurt in the man-trap. This expression of genuine concern for

her well-being is diluted by the fact that he has lied or withheld the truth

throughout the entirety of their relationship, and previously displayed a total

disregard for her feelings. One declaration of caring does not cause the reader

to view him with any less uncertainty and distrust.

Yet, Fitzpiers escapes any real punishment, leading Giordano to argue

that Hardy ended the novel with "conflicting intentions".255 Jean Brooks

sees a "confusion of purpose" within the text, reflected in the woodland's

dispersal of characters.256 However, Langbaum asserts that the death scene

255 Giordano, 56.

256 Jean Brooks, 217.

"concentrates the novel's conflicting tones and values as does no other single

episode".257 The reader wanted Grace and Giles to have one grand erotic

encounter in the woods, but Hardy shatters that expectation. Instead, the

intensity of their sexual repression results in a "perverse eroticism, whereby

sickness and a love-death substitute for consummation".258 There is no

poignant climax where one might be expected; no sense of high tragedy.

Millgate considers Giles' self-sacrifice "almost comic in its strict observation

of the proprieties", while Widdowson questions whether Mrs. Charmond

death should be classified as tragedy or "self-Parodic burlesque".259 Hardy

shifts between comedy and tragedy, with one genre subverting the other.260

Subversion is a common feature of Gothic fiction, but Hardy was not

happy with the ending of The Woodlanders. He claimed that convention

prevented him from stressing that "Fitzpiers goes on all his life in a bad

way".261 Despite Hardy's claims of interference, Casagrande argues that it was

"something more than editorial or lending library" concerns that troubled the

author.262 He posits that the reason that author was unable to conclude the

novel to his satisfaction was because he could not find the suitable sentiments

and emotions to describe Grace's return to Little Hintock. However, he

257 Langbaum, Thomas Hardy in Our Time (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1995), 122.

258 Ibid.

259 Millgate, His Career, 257; and Peter Widdowson, Thomas Hardy, (Plymouth, England: Northcote House in association with the British Council, 19%), 56.

260 Langbaum, In Our Time, 128.

261 Weber, Hardy and the Lady, 89.

262Casagrande, "Shifted", 124

contends that this failure led to the success of Tess and Jude, where the

journey became more important than the outcome.

Nevertheless, the ending is not necessarily a failure. In overthrowing

the traditional Gothic formula, the hero died in a futile attempt to help the

heroine, while the villain triumphed and reclaimed the reluctant hand of his

wife. The virtues of love, loyalty, and simplicity went unrewarded. There is

no formal conclusion but as Maturin and Lewis displayed, a lack of closure is

a feature of later Gothic novels. There was no need for Hardy to explain his

intentions.

In fact, Hardy succeeds in expressing his intuitions of the Gothic by

subverting the pastoral ideology of the novel. Through his portrayal of the

woods, he creates "an iconography, a language of images", not only visually,

but in the " 'moods' or 'spirits' themselves-the powerful expositions" of

emotion-terror and calmness, cruelty and tenderness, lust and love.263

However, with his language, he conveys an atmosphere of dark fantasy,

amplified by grotesque images of Darwinian nature.

Carpenter contends that "despite the unreality -or perhaps because of

it", the storm scenes involving Grace are the best in the novel.264 The

convulsions of the weather illustrate her psychological torment, while the

strife of the wind and rain contributes to the overall air of confusion and

disarray. Overlaying it all is an image of nightmarish unreality, exemplified

by the phantasmal sounds that Grace hears, and the grotesque

anthropomorphizing of the woods, with the plant leaves' "lidless eyes" and

263C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (1960) (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1977), 23.

264 Richard Carpenter, " 'Hardy's Gurgoyles' ", Modern Fiction Studies 6:3 (Autumn 1960): 230.

the "rotting stumps" of old tress, which look like "black teeth from green

gums (40, 266; 42, 276).

Hardy places Grace in this terrifying and sublime environment, and

although it leads her to discard Christian morality, it does not expand her

mind. Unlike Knight in A Pair of Blue Eyes, such an atmosphere does not

lead to an augmentation of her imagination or reality: she has no

transcendent experience expressive of the Gothic. Instead, the woods

themselves seem to be amplified, with ghosts, and possibly supernatural

beings, frequenting the premises. In addition, the grotesqueness of the trees

suggest a "presence in the world of forces which cannot be accounted for by

the daylight self and the self-sufficient mind".265

With its "connotations of perversion, of violent connections between

the real and the unreal, the mundane and the surrealistic",266 the grotesque

is expressive of the Gothic. Using reshaped conventional Gothic images of

grotesque foliage, Hardy is able to blur reality, explore the unfathomable, and

shatter boundaries and demarcations, reaching towards something that is not

itself, pointing not to the Gothic, but his sense of the Gothic.

The Woodlanders is Hardy's only novel where he makes the woods

and their grotesque and "Darwinian aspects the main setting for his story.267

In his next novel, he reverts back to traditional Gothic figures of tombs and

graveyards, while the typical theme of the past is given greater importance.

However, despite a return to more familiar Gothic modes of representation,

Hardy is unable, or unwilling to express his sense of the Gothic in Tess.

265 peter Brooks, 249.

266 Ibid., 225.

267 Pinion, Companion, 65.

146

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PROMINENCE OF THE GOTHIC PAST IN TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is Hardy's most powerful and controversial

work. He started writing it in the fall of 1888 for the Tillotson and Son

newspaper syndicate, with serialization expected to begin in the later months

of 1889. However, they canceled their contract with Hardy after the first two

Phases had been set in type because he refused to revise certain portions of the

novel. In October of 1889, the author submitted the still unfinished work to

Murray's Magazine, but due to its "improper explicitness", the editor refused

it ,268 It was next offered to Macmillan's Magazine, which rejected it for the

same reason. Eventually, the Graphic agreed to carry the story on the

condition that everything related to Tess's violation was omitted: "she

returned home after discovering that she had been tricked into a bogus

marriage" and "no child was bom."269 The installments ran from July to

268 Richard Purdy, Thomas Hardy: A Bibliographical Study (New York: n.p., 1954),71.

269 F.B. Pinion, Hardy the Writer. Surveys and Assessments (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1990), 345.

147

December of 1891, with the complete novel, as originally written, published

one month before the serialization ended.

Hardy discovered early in his novel-writing career that he could not

"speak the truth of love, of its essential sexuality", without making himself

"the target of many a Text-painter."270 Such constraints forced him to resort

to forms of covert eroticism in order to express desire, but in Tess , he refused

to sublimate his female protagonist's passion. Radically, he stressed "the

sensuality of Tess's beauty" and acknowledged her erotic impulses.271 In an

age where only the "diseased female" took pleasure in sex, he created a

sympathetic heroine who could not repress or deny "her pleasure in her

sexuality."272 In doing so, he greatly offended the social decorum of the day.

The Saturday Review considered Tess to be "an unpleasant story [told]

in a veiy unpleasant way", while the Quarterly Review echoed: "Mr. Hardy

has told an extremely disagreeable story in an extremely disagreeable

manner".273 The novel was excoriated as "a failure" by the Fortnightly

Review , but praised as "one of the greatest novels of this century" in the

270 Richard McGhee, " "Swinburne Planteth, Hardy Watereth': Victorian Views of Pain and Pleasure in Human Sexuality", chap, in Sexuality and Victorian Literature, ed. Richard Cox (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 83.

271 Gail Cunningham, The New Woman and the Victorian Novel (London: The Macmillan Press, 1978), 99.

272 Vem Bullough, "Nineteenth Century Attitudes Towards Sex", chap, in Sexual Variance in Society and History (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1976), 548; and McGhee, "Swinburne Watereth", 91.

273 Anonymous, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Saturday Review 16 Jan. 1892: 734; and Anonymous, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Quarterly Review April 1892: clxxiv, 319-26; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response," ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 183 and 217.

148

Westminster Review.27* The Bookman asserted that it was "second to no

work of its time" and the Pall Mall Gazette applauded it as "the strongest

English novel of many years".275 The Athenaeum described Tess as "great",

but the reviewer also asked, "Why should a novelist embroil himself in

moral technicalities?",276 rather suggesting that s/he missed the entire point

of Hardy's career as a novelist.

In Tess, Hardy initially employs an innocuous traditional Gothic plot,

featuring a young girl threatened by a male interloper. Alec d'Urberville is

both intruder and impostor, having, "bought the d'Urberville name and

estate with the new money of mercantile exploitation", while Angel Clare is

an "urban invader" who disrupts village life with his modem ideas 277 In an

abrupt shattering of Gothic convention, the threat presented by the villain is

carried out and the innocent maiden is sexually assaulted. However, the

purported hero's subsequent emotional and spiritual betrayal of her is the

most heinous violation.

274 Francis Adams, (Review of Tess of the d'Urberville),The Fortnightly Review 1 July 1892: n. pg.; and D.F. Hannigan, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Westminster Review Dec. 1892: ocxxviii, 655-9; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 220 and 224.

275 Anonymous, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), The Bookman Feb. 1892: n. pg.; and Anonymous, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Pall Mall Gazette 31 Dec. 1891: n. pg.; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series (East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 175 and 189.

276 Anonymous, (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles), The Athenaeum 9 Jan. 1892:n. pg.; qtd. in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response," ed. Graham Clarke, The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series,(East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993), 176.

277 Allan Brick, "Paradise and Consciousness in Hardy's Tess", Nineteenth-CenturyFiction 17:2 (Sept. 1962): 118; and Jean Brooks, 238.

149

The tale is set in the Vale of Blackmore, a region in the south of

England. Alec seduces Tess in the Gothic primeval forests of the Chase,

eventually causing her to leave her home village of Marlott for the

fruitfulness of Talbothays' diary. After Angel repudiates her, she returns

briefly to Marlott, and then travels to the harsh landscape of Flintcomb Ash.

Although she is summoned back home by her mother, she and the rest of the

Durbeyfield family are thrust out of Marlott when her father dies, and they

are forced to seek refuge at the ancient d'Urberville vaults at Kingsbere. To

ensure her family's survival, Tess resigns herself to living with Alec at

Sandboume, until Angel intervenes. She spends the happiest time of her life

with him in the New Forest and her peregrinations finally end at

Stonehenge.

As in traditional Gothic fiction, the novel features confused identities,

incredible coincidences, and fantastical scenes. Alec appears in many guises,

making it difficult to identify his real character. Tess is alternatively

identified as the "unfallen Eve or an Eve who willingly accepts the serpent",

while Angel is hero and villain.279 There is an emphasis on the grotesque

and the macabre, often manifested in the author's discordant language,

while the indistinct nightmarish scenes in the novel increase the sense of

disorder.

Gothic images of tombs resonate through the novel, beginning with

John Durbeyfield's imaginings of his ancestors in " 'gr't lead coffins' ".280 A

somnambulistic Angel places a living Tess into an empty stone coffin,

279 Laura Claridge, 'Tess: A Less than Pure Woman Ambivalently Presented", Texas Studies in Literature and Language 28 (Fall 1986): 331.

280 Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), ed. Scott Elledge, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1979), 1-1,8. All subsequent references to Tess of the d'Urbervilles are parenthetical, with phase, chapter, and page number.

150

signifying her death to him. At a later date, Alec follows the Durbeyfield

family to the ruined d'Urberville vaults at Kingsbere. Ignoring the solemnity

associated with a place of death, he lies on an altar tomb in their debased

ancestral sepulchre and frightens Tess by pretending to be an effigy. At

Stonehenge, an ancient site of sacrifice, the heroine elects to give up her

struggle for life.

Mirroring the anxiety of the age, the novel questions the difference

between the natural and unnatural, particularly in the relationships between

male and female. Alec's animalistic ardour is excessive, but so to is Angel's

spiritual passion. Tess is pulled in different direction by both men and is not

sure what is natural. Meanwhile, society insists that her own erotic impulses

are unnatural, because women are supposed to "exalt the emotional side of

love".280

The novel has a strong ironical tone and is itself an ironic attack of the

reader's expectations. The villain dies at the hands of the heroine, while

subversion of the Gothic formula that first asserts itself with Tess's violation,

is also evident in her final fate: execution. As in The Woodlanders, there is

no resolution in Tess. When Tess she says "I am ready", she does not mean

she is ready to die, but ready to discontinue the battle to live (7-LVIII, 328).

She does not expire fittingly on the stone altar; she is not swept up in a

moment of epiphany. The black flag starkly signifies her death. While some

critics view the final scene of Angel and Liza-Lu walking off hand-in-hand as

280 Martha Vicinus, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), 159.

281 Carpenter, 229.

151

hopeful, others see it as simply a repetition of the same event.282 There is no

closure.

The central Gothic theme of the novel revolves around time,

concentrating particularly on the ability of the past to reassert itself in the

present. Throughout the text, Hardy emphasizes the fact that the past is

inescapable, but he is also conscious of the power of language. Tess is

undone, not by the past, but by the utterance of that past.

Pastor Tringham, the official representative of Christianity in Marlott,

forces the past to intrude into the present with one word. On the first page of

the novel, following a greeting from John Durbeyfield, he reciprocates,

wishing "Sir John" a good night. When the haggler questions his use of the

title, the enthusiastic genealogist warms to his theme, elaborating:

'Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla of Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. ... in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the Great Council ... and in Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak.' (1-1, 7)

Durbeyfield's knightly ancestors go back centuries, from 1066 and Lord

Estremavilla-a Norman invader who conquered Celtic/Welsh land-to the

reign of Charles II, whose rule ended in 1665. John Durbeyfield, only "a little

debased" in physical features, is descended from a medieval noble family with

his forebears lying in copious " 'rows and rows of ... vaults' ", clothed in "

'coats of mail and jewels" (1-1, 6, 7, 8).

Although he had not intended to disturb the villager with " 'such a

useless piece of information", the clergyman notes that " 'our impulses are

too strong for our judgment sometimes' ", a statement that resounds

282 See J. Hillis Miller, Distance and Desire; and Curry.

152

throughout the novel (1-1, 7). The d'Urberville's illustrious past is a

meaningless fact of history, but paradoxically, this information becomes

meaningful in the present. Through verbal references to medieval knights

and ancient vaults , the deadness of the Gothic past is reanimated, with

disastrous effects for the Durbeyfield family. 283

"Sir"' John welcomes this news of the past and has no intention of

trying to escape from it. The new-found knowledge of his heritage causes

him to wonder if a brass band playing in the distance for the May-Day dance is

" 'on account o' I?' ", and in an effort to aggrandize himself, superciliously

announces that he might " 'drive round and inspect the club [of dancers]' "

from the carriage he has extravagantly ordered (1-XI, 9). Durbeyfield attempts

to reclaim the past, when the d'Urberville family had money and status, are

doomed to fail.

The past cannot be redeemed. Being addressed as 'Sir', giving himself

airs, or spending money in an improvident manner will not elevate

Durbeyfield to the former stature of his antecedents. Indeed, Tess's friends

laugh at him for riding by in a coach. Neither bragging about the ancestral

vaults at Kingsbere, nor offering to sell the family name, will bring him any

wealth. In fact, he denies his family some much needed money on account of

the past-refusing to sell Prince to the knackers because " 'when we

d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's

meaf " ( 1-IV, 28). Prince's name is another reference to the d'Urberville's

noble past, but far from being a stallion fit for a king's stables, like the family,

he has deteriorated in health and esteem.

283 Sage and Smith, eds., 4.

153

Worn and tired as he is, Prince is still the corporeal mainstay of the

family's haggling business. The entire description of his last journey is very

dream-like, while his death initially appears unreal. Due to her father's

inebriated state, Tess is forced to take the bees to market in the early hours of

the morning. As Prince pulls the wagon carrying the hives down the road,

Tess slips "deeply into reverie", a semi-conscious state not unlike the

alcoholic "occidental glow" that placates the senior Durbeyfields at Rolliver's

inn (1-IV, 26; l-III, 18). As she experiences a double expansion of

consciousness and reality, the passing scenery becomes "fantastic ... outside

reality", while the wind transforms into "the sign of some immense sad

soul". Even the sudden and violent death of Prince, occurring in the dim

morning twilight, retains a shadowy quality ( 1-IV, 26). As dawn breaks, a

sense of fantasy remains, as the pool of the dead horse's blood assumes an

"iridescence" with "a hundred prismatic hues ... reflected from it". However,

Tess's expansive state is quickly destroyed as horrifying reality reasserts itself.

In the daylight, Prince laid "still and stark; his eyes half open ... [with a] hole

in his chest" (1-IV, 27).

As illustrated by this incident, Tess remains trapped in a triple bind,

"doomed by the potent power of the past (heredity), caught in the social and

economic relations of her present class (family), and subject to the potentially

destructive forces of modern change (the mail-cart)".284 Her father's

exultance over his prestigious ancestors (heredity), and his subsequent

indulgent inebriation (family), forces Tess onto the country lane early in the

morning, where Prince is killed by the pointed shaft of a relatively new

innovation (the mail-cart). The "crucial acts of violence", like the slaying of

284 Widdowson, Hardy in History, 121.

154

Prince, the violation of Tess, and the murder of Alec, are repetitions of

previous turbulent times of the past, when d'Urberville soldiers were reputed

to have their way with country girls.285 The common theme of piercing runs

through all these incidents, as the past penetrates the present in more ways

than one.

At Prince's burial, in a foreshadowing of Tess's eventual role, her face

"was dry and pale, as though she regarded herself in the light of a murderess"

(1-IV, 28). She accepts the blame for his death, believing there is "no excuse"

for her own negligence ( 1-IV, 27). The family is not as troubled as Tess

though, as the lackadaisical state of the household means that they view

Prince's death with only mild perturbation. Nevertheless, in an attempt to

alleviate her feeling of guilt, she acquiesces to her mother's desire to claim

kin and travels to the d'Urberville country estate in Trantridge. Like a typical

Gothic heroine, she submits to parental authority.

Contrary to her expectations, there is no Gothic mansion on the

d'Urberville grounds. She uneasily murmurs, " 'I thought we were an old

family; but this is all new' ". The brick house, the stables, and the glass green

houses are all of recent construction, and everything "looked like money" (1-

V, 31). Furthermore, the man who introduces himself as Mr. d'Urberville

does not have an "aged and dignified face", like she has imagined, but is a

young man with a "swarthy complexion" (1-V, 33).

Alec is initially typecast as the typical Gothic villain of melodrama, for

along with his dark colouration, he has "full lips, badly moulded, ... above

which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points" (1-IV, 32).

Within hours of his first meeting with Tess, he evokes the image of the fall,

285 J. Hillis Miller, "Repetition as Immanent Design", 119.

155

as, in an erotic inversion of Milton's Paradise Lost, he coerces her to eat out-

of-season strawberries. She does so in "a half-pleased, half- reluctant state. ...

like one in a dream" (1-V, 34). Helena Michie posits that the berries, forced

between her teeth, not only foreshadow his rape of her, but also "silence her

protests and effectively prevent her from expressing her own desire from

then on".286 In this case, her passivity is no match for his "aggressive

demeanour" .287

Before she left that day, Alec chided Tess, telling her that d'Urberville

and Durbeyfield were two different names, even though he himself had no

legitimate claim on the d'Urberville name. His late merchant father picked

the archaic surname out of a British Museum book that "was devoted to

extinct... obscure and ruined families" and annexed it to his original name

when he moved to the country (1-V, 32) Parson Tringham knew very well

that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more related to the Durbeyfields than he

was, but neglected to share this information.. The clergyman's silence was just

as dangerous as his utterance.

Alec is not her "Coz'. He is strongly attracted to her because of beauty,

not her bloodlines. He arranges for her to come work for his mother as a

poultry farm/bird assistant. She is identified with birds, with the tame

chickens and bullfinches in the Stoke-d'Urberville house later giving way to

injured pheasants, hurt, as she has been, by humanity. The latter winged

creatures die because of their "inability of nature to bear more", and in a

prefiguration of her own death, Tess breaks the necks of those who are still

288 Helena Michie, The Flesh Made Word: Female Figure and Women's Bodies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 24.

287 Deborah Collins, Thomas Hardy and His God: A Liturgy of Unbelief (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1990), 129.

156

alive, to stop the torture of these "kindred sufferers" (5-XLI, 232). (Tongue-in-

cheek, Millgate comments that "Hardy's feelings about bloodsports almost

makes it possible to speak of Tess's plight as dramatizing that of the birds".288)

She is also compared to animals. When Alec presses her for a kiss, her

eyes were like those of "a wild animal" (1-VIII, 45) As Clare secretly observes

her, he likens her to a "domestic animal", docile and submissive, or so he

thinks (3-XIX, 102). She changes to "a wary animal", rather skittish when she

finds herself in the company of other men, and when Clare teases her about

not loving him, she is referred to as "a wounded animal", highlighting her

sensitivity (4- XXXI, 163; 4-XXXIV, 184). John Humma posits that her "wild

animal aspect" causes her to kill Alec, as she abandons self-restraint.289

Alec himself has little self-control and his animalistic passion for Tess

puts her in danger. An ambiguous figure, his character is constantly shifting,

from 'Coz', to sexual aggressor, and then, briefly, to religious fanatic. Late in

the novel, he becomes a caricature of Satan, with the requisite flames and

pitchfork. Dorothy Van Ghent argues that "when Alec plays his last frivolous

trick on Tess"-springing up at her from one of the slabs in the ruined

d'Urbervilles vault-"his neuroticism finally wears ... the deeply convincing

character of insanity".290

In contrast, Pinion considers such behaviour "sadistic", contending

that this tendency of Alec's is first revealed by his mad galloping "when he

288 His Career 268.

289 Humma, "Language and Disguise: The Imagery of Nature and Sex in Tess", South Atlantic Review 54 (Nov. 1989): 67.

290 Van Ghent, "On Tess of the d'Urbervilles", chap. in The English Novel: Form and Function (New York: n.p., 1953), 123.

157

conveys Tess and her luggage to the Slopes.291 After the incident with Prince,

Tess is uneasy on anything with wheels, and she asks Alec to go slowly. Once

he reaches the top of a hill, he ignores her request and recklessly spurs his

horse, speeding down so quickly that Tess is obliged to hang on to his waist to

keep from falling out. At the top of another incline, he does the same thing,

but promises to stop if she allows him to kiss her. With tears of desperation,

she agrees and, pitilessly, Alec gives her "the kiss of mastery", prefiguring his

ultimate mastery of her (1-Vin, 45). Yet, in the end, he is murdered, as the

victim turns on her aggressor.

Once her harrowing journey is over, Tess settles into a routine at

Trantridge. Although she is dependent upon Mrs. d'Urberville for her

employment, the old woman's invalidism requires her to deal mainly with

Alec. Therefore, his influence over her is greater than that of mere

companionship. As he becomes familiar to her, she loses much of her

shyness of him, even though a hint of her "original mistrust" still remains

(1-X, 54,55).

Tess was unsure of why she felt uneasy around Alec. The looks from

him that made her blush, and the "sly regards from loungers in the streets of

the town", troubled her, but being only "on the momentary threshold of

womanhood", she was uncertain what such glances meant (1-X, 52). Kristen

Brady argues that the Trantridge farm-workers seek to educate and introduce

Tess into the "world of sexuality" hours before her ride into The Chase.292

After the weekly Saturday pilgrimage to a nearby town, Tess waits for

her fellow-workers to retire from a rousing evening dance, as she is

291 Pinion. Hardy the Writer, 62.

292 Kristin Brady, "Tess and Alec: Rape or Seduction?" Thomas Hardy Annual 4 (1986):139.

158

unwilling to walk home alone. She recognizes the fact that in the dark "the

roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent", but the

consideration of Alec as one of these peripatetic persons of dubious motives

never seems to cross her mind (1-X, 54).

A young man urges her to join the dance, but she refuses to indulge in

the general revelry going on; the "turbulent feet" kicking up "a sort of vegeto-

human pollen" and the "rushing couples ... indistinctness shaping them to

satyrs clasping nymphs". In clearer light "the demigods resolved themselves

into the homely personalities of her own next-door neighbors", but in the

haze, identities become inexplicably confused (1-X, 53). The real becomes

surreal, as she watches dancers through the fog of "vegeto-human pollen"

(10X, 52). The invocation of Greek sylvan deities accents the fantastical

element of the revelry, and foreshadows Tess's own later linkage with

Grecian goddesses. For the moment, she remains in the familiar corporeal

world, but she has caught a confusing glimpse of an exotic and alien world.

The dual views and blurred visual images suggest that Tess is still too

young to enter the adult world of sexuality. She does not understand the

time during the dance when "every couple had been suitably matched. ...

[and] the ecstasy and the dream began", when the conscious mind gives in to

unconscious desires (1-X, 54). Bewildered by the "complexities of an adult

world that entices by its ecstatic wildness", she is unable to respond to Alec's

query.293 Asking her if he may treat her as a lover, she asks, "how can I say

yes or no when-", leaving the question unanswered (1-XI, 61). Does he want

to escort her into this mad world that both fascinates and frightens her, or

does he wish to romance her in a gentlemanly manner? She is not quite sure

293 Brady, 141.

159

what he is asking, or what she herself wants, and therefore cannot reply with

any certainty.

Her nascent erotic impulses, nudged into life by the dance, are further

awakened on the homeward journey, a scene which Hardy loads with sexual

innuendo and imagery. The phallic image of molasses "oozing" like "a

slimy snake" down Car's back is suggestive, as she attempts to get rid of this

stain in a parody of violent sexual contortions. Laying on her back, she wipes

"her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and

dragging herself over it upon her elbows" (1-X, 56).

Tess joins the others in laughing at Car's behaviour, but it is doubtful

she fully understands all the connotations of the scene, only chuckling

because "'t 'others did' " (1-X, 57). Angry at being made the object of fun, Car

focuses angrily on Tess, who has supplanted her in Alec's affections. She

exclaims, " 'I'm as good as two of such!' ", and proceeds to bare her "neck,

shoulders, and arms (1-X, 57). Hardy indicates that she possesses the "faultless

rotundities of a lusty country girl", suggesting that Car's "two of such", is a

reference to her breasts, which she believes are the equal of Tess's (1-X, 57).

Brady suggests Tess's mirth indicates "a readiness for the sexual

experience",294 although she is scandalized by "such a whorage" as the display

of Car's naked upper torso. She is also artless enough, not only to give voice

to the thought, but also to "majestically" decline to fight her rival (1-X, 57).

Tess superior tone angers the rest of the female farm-workers. The male

work-folk try to defend her, but this only increases the hostility. Even as Tess

realizes that "the better among them would repent of their passion the next

294 Brady, 141.

160

day", at that moment, her only desire was to get away from their invective (1-

X, 57).

While the excited impulses of the work folk are caused by the sin of

drunkenness, Tess's impassioned action is caused by the sin of pride-the

mastery over one's enemies. She asserts her independence of the other work­

folk by retreating, but at the same time, feels compelled to withdraw because

she has been beaten into submission. As she rides off with Alec, the

intuition that she is-as Car's mother says-jumping" 'out of the fiying-pan

into the fire!' ", is eclipsed by the triumph of her successful flight away from

her tormentors (1-X, 58).

The fog that envelopes the couple reflects Tess's own hazy state of

mind. Exhausted, she is unaware that Alec has taken her far past the turn-off

to Trantridge. They are in the Chase-

a truly venerable tract of forest land, one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primeval date, wherein Druid mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew trees, not planted by the hand of man, grew. (1-V, 31)

Alec is genuinely unsure of what part of the forest he is in, so he makes a nest

of leaves for Tess, gives her his coat, and then tries to ascertain their location.

When he returns, the blackness is so complete that he has to walk with his

hands outstretched, so as not to run into any trees. Seeing a "pale

nebulousness at his feet" and hearing "a gentle regular breathing", he finds

Tess asleep and lays his cheek on hers, while "darkness and silence ruled

everywhere" (1-XI, 63). The narrator likens Alec's actions to those of the

ancient soldiers-the Gothic knights who symbolize the inherent violence of

the d'Urberville past. There is a

161

possibility of retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. (1-XI, 63)

Hardy ironically notes that the favored old testament policy-to visit

the sins of the father upon the sons-"may be a morality good enough for

divinities", but for mere mortals such a method is renounced (1-XI, 63). An

offense committed against the current generation cannot erase or correct any

misdeeds that occurred long ago at the hands of antecedents. It does not

make things rights, for "the past cannot be either escaped or redeemed by

action. ... because it is not a single event located in time".295

Critical views vary markedly on whether Tess was raped or seduced on

that night in the Chase.296 No matter what words one uses, Tess's experience

is ambiguous and cannot be summed up in language-that is Hardy's point.

He is reticent about what happened in the Chase in order to press home the

understanding that the critical choices Tess makes in her life-including the

derision which led to her presence in the Chase-are complex and equivocal.

The "thick darkness" and "obscurity" not only physically screen Alec from

any passersby, they also prevent the reader from distinguishing the truth

295 Margaret Putnam, 'The Primacy of the Past: The Mill on the Floss, Great Expectations, and The Mayor of Casterbridge" (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas/ Austin, 1977), 178.

296 Critics who think she was seduced indude: Deborah Collins, 131; and David Lodge, T ess, Nature and the Voices of Hardy", in Language of Fiction: Essays in Criticism and Verbal Analysis of the English Novel (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 185.

Critics who believe she was raped indude: F.B. Pinion, Hardy the W riter, 106; and Richard McGhee, " 'Swinburne Planteth, Hardy Watereth' ", 91.

Eliot Gose discusses seduction and rape without any distinction between the two in "Physic Evolution: Darwinism and Initiation in Tess of the d"Urbervilles", Nineteenth- Century Fiction 18:3 (Dec. 1963).

162

(1-XI, 63). Newey notes that "there is no ideal truth, only a range of truths",

and all are true, or rather, none are false.297

The attitude of some of the villagers reinforces the belief that Tess did

not go along willingly with Alec's actions. When she goes back to work in the

Marlott fields after the birth of Sorrow, one of the farm-workers reflects that:

'a little more persuading had to do wi' the coming o't [Tess's baby], I reckon. There were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in The Chase; and it might ha' gone hard wi' a certain party if folks had come along'. (2-XTV, 76)

Nevertheless, while a physically and emotionally exhausted Tess was

overwhelmed by Alec in the darkness, the novel quietly notes, for "a few

weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase" she was Alec's mistress

(2-Xn, 63).

Through Alec's interference, Tess was plunged into an exotic world of

sexuality.

She winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away.... Hate him she did not quite. (2-XII,69)

Ian Gregor remarks that "Alec brings to consciousness [her] own

sexuality", and McGhee agrees that through the actions of Alec, she "realized

something in herself that she cannot accept, cannot repress, and finally

cannot deny-her pleasure in her sexuality".298 Still, self-reproachfully, she

297 Newey, 'Thomas Hardy and the Form of Making", 229.

298 Ian Gregor, The Great Web: The Form of Hardy's Major Fiction (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), 182; and Richard McGhee, 91.

163

does not hate Alec as much as she does herself, for submitting to his

advances. Upon leaving Alec, Tess says to him, "I didn't understand your

meaning until it was too late", to which he replies, "Thaf s what every

woman says". Indicative of her strong feelings, she swears at him, "My God!

... Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women

feel?" (2-Xn, 65).

Yet, Alec did not force Tess to stay with him in the weeks after their

first sexual encounter. Recognizing this, Laura Claridge stated that the

heroine did not, "in the end deserve the full sympathy that the thrust of the

dominant narrative" called for. At the same time, she pointed to the subtitle

of the novel as proof that Tess's "innocence" was "important to Hardy".299

He noted ironically that the term, "A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented", was

"a mere description unlikely to be disputed, as one might say 'an

accomplished lady' or 'a man of wealth' ".300 However, the author's

presumption of her guiltlessness is supported by the text, as her vulnerability

and purity are highlighted by the images of "the beautiful feminine tissue,

sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow", which was "traced [by]

such a coarse pattern" in the darkness of The Chase (1-XI, 62). Shanta Dutta

insisted that Hardy fully supported Tess,301 and the ambivalent tone that

Claridge perceived may have been due to the changes in the story from serial

to novel version. (Tess was unequivocally blameless in the former, where

she and Alec were married in a sham ceremony and no baby was bom.)

Nevertheless, Garson finds it

299 Laura Claridge, 325 and 327.

300 Thomas Hardy, letter to Henry Jones, 2 Dec. 1909, CL IV, 62.

301 Shanta Dutta, "Preface" in Ambivalence in Hardy: A Study of His Attitudes Towards Women (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), x.

164

hard to believe that an adolescent girl brought up by Joan Durbeyfield would be as ignorant as Tess seems to be of the nature of the threat posted by Alec, yet Tess reluctantly surrenders to a number of overtures without any apparent sense of where they are leading.302

Upon leaving Alec and telling her mother of her troubles, she asks in

anguish, 'Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't

you warn me?" ( (2-XII, 70). However, her mother knew that Alec would

make advances. In fact, she counted upon it and naively expected that after

the fact, he would marry Tess. She did not educate Tess, because she thought

her daughter would act too proud if she counseled her about what the man's

"fond feelings" might result in. She concludes that' "Tis nater, after all, and

what do please God!", unaware of the irony evident in such a statement (2-

xn , 70).

The Gothic past that John Durbeyfield embraced provided the impetus

for Tess to claim kin and gain employment at the Slopes, which in turn led to

her violation, and the subsequent birth and death of the infant, Sorrow. She

physically buried the product of the past, but she also wanted to forget her

former actions. 'To escape the past and all that appertained thereto, was to

annihilate it, and to do that she would have to get away" from Marlott (2-XV,

84). Therefore, a year after Sorrow's death, she accepted employment at

Talbothays dairy, which was located near some of the former grounds and

vaults of the ancient d'Urbervilles. Oblivious of the damage her Gothic past

has already caused her, she wondered "if any strange good things might come

of her being in her ancestral land" (2-XV, 85).

302 Garson, 137.

165

At the same time, despite her feelings that the proximity of her

ancestral home might lead to "good things", she refutes any connection with

them. When Dairyman Crick says that he once heard that "a family of some

such name of yours ... came originally from these parts, and 'twere an old

ancient race that all but perished", she denies any knowledge of such a story

(3-XVII, 91). Along with the story, Hardy invokes Gothic images of long-

forgotten estates and ancient sepulchres, still extant, to illustrate the "peculiar

unwillingness of the past to go away".303

Unaware of her past and lineage, Angel views her as "a fresh and

virginal daughter of Nature", and seems "to discern in her something ...

which carried him back into a joyous and unforeseeing past, before the

necessity of taking thought had made the heaven gray" (3-XVIII, 102). He

thinks she retains a certain innocence and naivete, with her faith in a

provident God remaining uninfluenced by the troubling ideas of Darwin.

Her belief is more ambiguous, with the idea of a "vague ethical being whom

she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not

comprehend as any other" (2-Xm, 72). Tess possesses more complex feelings

that he realizes, and he is surprised and slightly troubled by her comment that

the "hobble of being alive is rather serious" (3-XIX, 105). Her thoughts

suggest she is not the old-fashioned and God-fearing country maid he wants

her to be.

Like Fitzpiers, Angel objectifies Tess as "a visionary essence of woman"

(3-XX. 131). He prefers the abstract to the physical, which is why he likens her

to imaginary Greek deities, like Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, and

Artemis, the moon goddess and virgin huntress. He also credits her with

303 Sage and Smith, 4.

166

admirable physical attributes, with a face of "real warmth" and a perfect

mouth, except in the lips, where "the humanity was found in the "touch of

the imperfect" (3-XXIV, 127). Physical flaws are acceptable to him, but he

expects her to be morally perfect, like the pre-lapsarian Eve.

Angel and Tess's duties of milking the cows together made them feel

"like Adam and Eve" , while the diary itself has Edenic associations (3-XXX,

110). Tess has an spiritual experience in the fields, as her encounter with

Angel and his harp is much like Cytherea's enthralling experience with

Manston and his organ. As the wildflowers' "waves of colour mixed with the

waves of sound" from Angel's harp, Tess becomes unaware of her

surroundings, and her "physical sensations are translated into a spiritual

dimension".305 The music from his harp sounds majestic, and indeed; Tess

tells Angel that he " 'can raise up dreams with your music' ", similar to the

Fiddler of the Reels, (3-XDC, 104-5). Yet, the "instrument and execution" are

"poor" and the notes of the harp are merely "thin" (3-XDC, 104). The sublime

storm in Desperate Remedies causes Manston's organ playing to appear better

than it really is, but in Tess, her own fascination with the musician influences

her perception of the melodies.

However, there is a disturbance within the fields, as Hardy juxtaposes

"hints of decay in the midst of growth".306 In what Tomlinson calls the

"oppressive fruitfulness"307 of Talbothays, some wildflowers produce

"dazzling" red, yellow and purple blooms, but the strong rank smells of

305 3-XXX, 104; and Humma, 74.

306Alan Friedman, "Thomas Hardy: Weddings Be Funerals", in The Turn of the Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 58.

307 T.B. Tomlinson, "Hardy's Universe: Tess of the d'Urberville", Critical Review 16 (1973): 34.

167

uncultivated wild plants are also in evidence (3, XIX, 104). There is an

element of disquietude in the author's grotesque language-the animal excreta

of "cuckoo-spittle" and "slug-slime", and the "sticky blights" which discolour

Tess's skin (3, XIX, 104).

Hardy also utilizes discordant images. When Tess emerges from an

afternoon nap and yawns, Angel notices "the red interior of her mouth as if it

had been a snake's". In case the readers miss the potential threats inherent in

snakes-their venom and their associations with Lucifer-he also makes note

of her "coiled-up" hair (4-XXVII, 143) . Innocuously, the narrator compares

Tess to "a sunned cat" a few sentences later, which causes the reader to

consider Angel's views as all the more strange and memorable, although he

misses the sinister intimations (4-XXVII, 143).

Immediately following this jarring imagery, both point of view and

language insistently shift from Angel's views on Tess's external appearance to

the narrator's views of her internal vitality. As she moves from sleepiness to

awareness,

the brim-fulness of her nature breathed from her. It was a moment when a women's soul is more incarnate than at any other time: when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation. (4-XXVII, 143)

This is Hardy's 'pure woman'. Her soul, her essence, her "spiritual beauty"

shines forth through her corporeal body, accentuating her physical beauty,

which is of secondary importance .

This portrait is bracketed by disturbing images. As Tess become aware

of Angel's scrutiny, she looked at him "as Eve at her second waking might

have regarded Adam", when "the eyes of them both were opened, and they

ib»

knew they were naked".307 Kaja Silverman mentions the "curious instability

about Tess's image".308 Is she the woman with the radiant inner spirit, the

"unfallen Eve", or is she the one who is associated with snakes-the "Eve

who willingly accepts the serpent"?309

As their relationship deepens, their erotic impulses become difficult to

contain. In one instance, "the influence that had passed into Clare like an

excitation from the sky did not die down", and when he "clasped her in his

arms" she "sank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like

an ecstatic cry" (3-XXTV, 127). While she expresses her passion, Angel chastely

pulls back from even kissing her, but from this moment forward, he tells

himself that her loves Tess for herself "her soul, her heart, her substance"

(4-XXVI, 139).

Feeling unworthy, Tess refuses his first marriage proposal, but he

persists and she eventually accepts, thinking she can escape her past. She tells

him about her lineage and he presses her "to spell your name correctly-

d'Urberville-from this day". Minutes later, he appropriates her and the

name, saying, "Mistress Teresa d'Urberville, I have you"( 4-XXX, 159, 160).

However, Tess wants to invalidate the Durbeyfield/ d'Urberville link, for it is

this surname that sent her to the Stoke-d'Urberville estate. She wants Mrs.

Angel Clare to replace Mrs. Alexander d'Urberville, which she felt was her

true name, despite the lack of a marriage ceremony. Like a saviour, Angel's

words offered her an escape, a chance to nullify the past: " ' Take my name

and so you will escape yours! The secret is out so why should you any longer

307 3-XIX, 143; and King James. Genesis 3:7a.

308 Silverman, "History, Figuration and Femal Subjectivity in Tess of the d'Urbervilles", Novel: Forum on Fiction 18 (Fall 1984): 12.

309 Claridge, 331.

169

refuse me?' " (4-XXX, 160). What he considers their "secret" is their love for

each other, and once exposed, he sees no reason why they should hide it. Tess

holds onto another secret though, and when it comes to light, it is he that

refuses her. Nevertheless, as she agrees to marry him, she throws her arms

around his neck and kisses him with passion, and only then did he seem to

fully recognize her as a real, physical woman, with desires.

Feeling guilty, Tess intended to tell him about her past before the

wedding, and even slipped a letter under his door detailing the difficulties of

her earlier life. Hours before the ceremony, she realized that he never

received her note, and it was too late to disclose its contents. She could not

bring herself to renounce her "one desire ... to make herself his, to call him

her lord, her own-then, if necessary to die" (4-XXX, 178). Nevertheless, as

Sedgwick notes, by closing off language, i.e., not telling Angel, she had

rendered her knowledge even more "furtive and explosive" than it originally

was.311

Many portentous omens follow their wedding. The coach in which

they leave the church fills Tess with a nameless dread, which she cannot

explain or understand, until Angel tells her the superstitious legend of the

d'Urberville Coach, which dates back to the sixteenth century. Trembling,

Tess asks if members of her family see it when they are about to die, or if they

have committed a crime, but he dismisses her concerns. As they drive away,

the cock crows three times, the last time at Angel. Like Peter, he will

renounce someone who he pledged "to defend under any condition" (4-XXIX,

153). In addition, the farmhouse they are staying in once belonged to a

d'Urberville and there are immovable portraits of ladies of the ancient family

311 Sedgwick, 18.

170

on the landing. Tess dislikes the pictures of "those horrid women ... with

their long pointed features ... suggestive of merciless treachery", especially

because, even in her beauty, she resembles them (4-XXXIV, 183). Although

she is now Mrs. Angel Clare, she is still surrounded by her Gothic past,

seemingly unable to escape it.

Upon being informed of the suicide of one her fellow dairymaids by

the man who delivered their luggage, Tess is consumed by guilt and resolves

to tell Angel the truth. He forestalls her by telling of his own past

indiscretion which is, as Tess sees it "just the same" as hers (4-XXXTV, 190).

Yet, in an ominous allusion to Milton, as she tells her story, "each diamond

on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's" (4-XXXTV).

After her confession "nothing has changed from the moment when he

had been kissing her", but for Angel "the essence of things has changed" (5-

XXXV, 191). Tess's impurity in and of itself does not directly result in Angel's

distancing himself from her. It is by giving voice to the circumstances of that

blemish that drives him mentally and physically away. She has become

different, only "through the power construct of language",311 by giving voice

to an act that occurred in "obscurity. ... darkness and silence" (1-X, 62).

In the morning after the revelation she still looked "absolutely pure",

and at that moment, Angel might have "willingly taken a lie from her lips,

knowing it to be one", because he did not want to admit that his image of her

was wrong (5-XXXVI, 199). When he discovered that Tess had an infant and

that the father was still alive, all hope died in him. He was unable to adjust

to the image of her as a woman who has been the object of another man's

passion, or who might even have felt a moment of passion with this other

311 Goode, The Offensive Truth, 123.

171

man herself. As Rosemarie Morgan contends, he "cannot credit her with an

existence out of his power".312

The second night after their wedding, Angel entered Tess's bedroom

in a somnambulistic state and stood over her, murmuring "dead, dead, dead".

He picked her up and "rolled her in the sheet as in a shroud" (5-XXXV, 207).

He carried her downstairs and across the grounds until he reached the ruins

of an abbey. Still sleeping, he carefully laid her in "the empty stone coffin of

an abbot", kissed her and walked away (5-XXXV, 209). Goldstein contends

that this incident "goes beyond any credibility except as Gothic drama", but it

illustrated Angle's unconscious desires.313 He wanted Tess to be pure, but

the only way she could be regain her purity would be to die. He was unable to

admit in his conscious state that he wanted Tess to be dead and therefore,

beyond all reproach.

When Angel leaves Tess, Moring posits that he is fleeing from more

then his knowledge of Tess's affair. He may not want to acknowledge his

own erotic impulses. Despite his own forty-eight hours of debauchery with

an older woman in London, Angel "fears any kind of lapse into barbaric,

animalistic passion" because of the anxious Victorian indistinction "between

male and female, natural and unnatural, civilized and degenerate, human

and nonhuman ".314 He is "more spiritual than animal... less Byronic than

Shelleyan", with "a love more especially inclined to the imaginative" (4-

XXXI, 162). Hardy felt that "the animal side of human nature should never be

dwelt upon except as a contrast or foil to its spiritual side"315, but the narrator

312 Morgan, 105.

313 Goldstein, 147.

314 Meg Moring, 15.,

315 Thomas Hardy, letter to Horence Henniker, 31 March 1897, CL II,157.

172

significantly suggests that "more animalism" would have made Angel a

"nobler man" (5-XXXVI, 205). Excess spirituality can be as dangerous as excess

passion.

Angel is dangerous, even though his name and skill with a harp

ironically suggest an affinity with heaven. His renunciation of Tess is an

action of "priestly villainy", as is his hypocrisy.316 He "evincejs] considerable

indifference to social forms and observances" yet he forsakes Tess because of

social and moral convention (3-XVIII, 99). He claims to love the Church and

its history, but can not tolerate its theology, although he is still "the slave to

custom and conventionality" (5-XXXIX, 221). He dislikes the "material

distinctions of rank and wealth", yet delights in the knowledge of Tess's

ancient lineage (3-XVIII, 99). However, when she tells him of her past, he

turned around and calls her "the belated seedling of an effete aristocracy",

with her decrepit family "imply[ing] decrepit wills, decrepit conduct" (5-

XXXV, 195).

Ever the humble and submissive wife and servant, Tess believes that

Angel, her lord, knows "best what my punishment ought to be" and her

"long-suffering" attitude allows her husband to leave her with little remorse

(5-XXXVH, 212). He love of Angel remains steadfast and her idolization of

him continues long after he has left her. No longer possessing any faith in a

benevolent God, or in a bountiful, charitable Nature-she has already "learnt

that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing"-she must believe in

316 Masao Miyoshi, The Divided Self: A Perspective in the Literature of the Victorians (New York: New York University Press, 1969), 302.

317 Mallock, 65.

173

something and Angel fulfills that need, his very name ironically implying an

alliance with a divine power (2-XII, 64). Collins comments that she credits

him with a "godlike omnipotence" and still perceives him as her saviour.318

The perfect disciple, she worships him, "as if she saw something immortal

before her", and unlike Peter, she would never deny him, but would fact

would die for him (5-XXXVH, 212). She is willing to sacrifice herself for him,

but Angel cannot even defy social convention for Tess, let alone die for her.

As with the death of Prince, she takes all the blame upon herself, and is

unwilling to admit to anyone, least of all herself, that he has deserted her.

When she returns to Marlott, she gives her parents twenty-five pounds with

an "assertion of her dignity", or pride, "as if the wife of a man like Angel

Clare could well afford it" ( 5-XXXVIII, 216). She is unwilling to remain in

her hometown, but a return to Talbothays is rejected because it "might bring

reproach upon her idolized husband" (5-XLI, 230). She obtains work at

Flintcomb Ash and when her mother writes to request twenty more pounds,

she omits to tell her parents the truth about her poverty because "it might

have brought reproach upon him" (5-XLII, 237). She does not correct Joan's

impression that her husband was "a man of means and had doubtless

returned by this time", and she duly sends off money she can ill afford to lose

(5-XLI, 228). Meanwhile, pride prevents her from making a financial appeal

to Clare's parents. Marion, a former dairymaid at Talbothays, observes that

Angel's treatment of her "seems hardly fair", but Tess contends that his

actions are "quite fair; though I am unhappy. ... Wives are unhappy

sometimes; from no fault of their husbands-from their own (5-XLII, 236).

318 D. Collins ,134,132.

174

She will do her penance in the hell of Flintcomb Ash, hoping that in her

suffering she will gain absolution from her lord.

Still attempting to escape her past, Tess erases her physical identity

because "her fine features were unquestionably traceable" in the portraits of

past d'Urberville women. This is past she wishes to invalidate (4-XXXI, 183).

In addition, when a few young men are "troublesomely [sic] complimentary

to her good looks", she views it as a hazard ( 5-XLII, 233). After all, Alec took

an interest in his "'pretty Coz'" because of her "luxuriance of aspect" and this

led to her violation, and indirectly, to Angel's repudiation of her (1-V,34, 35).

The men's favorable remarks disturb her further because she feels that in

hearing them she is somehow being unfaithful to Angel. To prevent any

more expressions of manly admiration and to keep herself 'pure' for Angel,

who has already rejected her for a lack of purity, she puts on her most faded

and ancient clothes, hides half her face behind a handkerchief, and brutally

cuts off her eyebrows (5-XLII, 233).

There is a limit to what a human being can endure. To highlight Tess's

pain at Flintcomb Ash, Hardy introduces the Gothic image of "gaunt spectral

creatures with tragical eyes . . . . these nameless creatures" who have seen

"scenes of cataclysmal horror ... in curdling temperatures that no man could

endure" (5-XLIII, 240). (Hardy later professed that he could not remember

what "gaunt" birds he was specifically referring, but he was probably thinking

of snow buntings319) The desolation and climatic shifts these Arctic birds

have endured and been witness to, "heightens the reader's sense of Tess's

319 See The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy VII: 1926-1927, eds. R.L. Purdy and Michael Millgate (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978), 34. 7 vols. Title subsequently referred to as CL VII.

175

unrelieved anguish, past and present, and hint at her being on the edge of the

unendurable" ,320

Tess asked him not to make her punishment " 'more than I can

bear!', " but Giordano posits that since "she persists in considering Angel her

lord, she must endure humiliation, deprivation, and further sexual

abuse".321 Newey comments that the idea of "redemption through self-

sacrifice" is "part of an aberrant mentality".322 Still, Tess continues to wait for

the return of her saviour.

At the same time, Alec, who she has not seen since she left Trantridge,

shows up near Flintcomb Ash in the role of preacher. In his new-found

religious fervor, he seeks out Tess and gives her the message of salvation,

which she rejects. Ironically, while she suffers and undergoes her penance at

the hellish post-lapsarian farm, he is delivered simply by renouncing "the old

Adam of my former years". His declaration that conversion seemed like "a

jolly new idea" reminds one of Fitzpiers and his jaded search for fresh

concepts (6-XLV, 255, 256).

His faith is suspect, for he gives her the responsibility for his behaviour

Putting the onus upon her, he makes her swear " 'never [to] tempt me-by

your charms or your ways' again (6-XLV, 258). Even after she tells him, " T>o

not again come near me' ", he returns to see her again at Flintcomb Ash in

January, trying to make atonement by proposing marriage to her, but again

she implores: " 'Go—I beg you' " ( 6-XLV, 258; 6-XLVI, 264). She pleads with

him to leave her alone, before "any scandal spreads that may do harm to his

320 F.B. Pinion, Hardy the Writer, 97.

321 5-XXXVH, 212; and Giordano, 175.

322 Newey "Thomas Hardy and the Forms of Making", 215.

176

[Angel's] honest name" (6-XLVI, 268). But Alec continues to pursue her

relentlessly.

When he next visits her in February on the day of the Candlemas Fair,

he is no longer a believer and blames her for the destruction of his new­

found faith. Candlemas is a festival in honor of the purification of the Virgin

Mary, but he ironically calls her a "temptress" and "dear damned witch of

Babylon", described in the Bible as the "mother of harlots and abominations

of the earth".323 He accuses her of placing temptation, in the form of her

beauty, in his way-no matter that he sought her out against her express

wishes. He charges her with being " 'the innocent means' " of his loss of

faith, amending, " 'I do not blame you. But the fact remains' " ( 6-LVI, 268).

He denounces the traditional faith of Mr. Clare, the man who first charged

him with this fervent but brief evangelicalism, avowing that there is no God.

Alec refuses to " 'feel responsible for my deeds and passions if there's nobody

to be responsible to' ", and he advises Tess to do the same (6-XLVII, 274).

However, Tess feels it is her responsibility to continue to wait for

Angel and believe she was "very wrong and neglectful in leaving everything

to be done by him!" (5-XLIH, 245). In her penultimate letter to him, she

pleads as if to a New Testament god, "not to be just-only a little kind to me. ...

If you will send me one little line and say I am coming soon, I will bide on",

reiterating that she could die happy in his arms (6-XLVII, 279). But she has

already been condemned by the Old Testament law.

Tess manages to wait for the return of her human lord for fifteen

months,324 despite no word from him and with all indications pointing to

323 King James, Revelations 17:5b; and (6-XLVI, 268).

324 From her marriage on Christmas Day until the next year's Lady-Day in late March.

177

the reality that he has permanently deserted her. Finally, in a subversion of

the archetypal Gothic ending of "salvation through penance", she bitterly

admits to Alec that " 'I have no husband' ".326 Seeing her weakness, Alec

presses his advantage and applies emotional blackmail. He mentions her

parents and siblings and says he could make then comfortable if only she

would "show confidence' in him. This prompts her to plead with him to be

silent and not mention them to prevent her from " 'breaking] down quite' ".

Although she admits that he may be " 'a little better and kinder than I have

been thinking you were' ", she refuses to take anything from him, "either for

them or for me" (6-XWII, 278).

After rebuffing Alec, her family once more appeals to her for help,

summoning her home. She returns to Marlott, where her mother lies very

ill. After nursing her back to health, Tess turns her hand to practical matters,

e.g., providing food for her family. While her father works in their garden,

she prepares their nearby allotment for planting. She and many of her

neighbours enjoyed working on into the night, with the fires of refuse and

dead weeds burning on many of the plots, illuminating "the fantastic

mysteries of light and shade" (6-L, 288). On evening, as Tess is working the

soil with a steel fork, she sees another man working on the same allotment,

also employing a pitchfork. She thinks nothing of it, assuming that her

father had sent him, until she goes to throw some unwanted weeds into the

fire. Her fellow worker does the same.

The fire flared up, and she beheld the fact of d'Urberville.The unexpectness of his presence, the grotesqueness of his

appearance in gathered smockfrock ... worn by only the most old- fashioned of labourers, had a ghastly comicality that chilled her as to its bearing. D'Urberville emitted a low long laugh....

326 Ibid., 217; and 6-LI, 290.

178

'this is just like Paradise. You are Eve, and I am the Old Other One come to tempt you'. (6-1, 291).

In the flames, with weird attire and pitchfork in hand, Alec appears as a

otherworldly and grotesque caricature of Satan. He tempts Tess once more,

telling her he has been thinking about her siblings and the poor health of her

father. Once more, she refutes him. A few minutes later, she discovers that

her father is dead, and with him goes the freehold.

Firor believes that the eviction of the Durbeyfield and their search for a

place to sleep is "a picture that is drawn perhaps in too strong a light and

shade".326 Once they are thrust out of Marlott, her family ends up staying by

the Gothic d'Urberville vaults in Kingsbere. Tess's mother declares, " 'Isn't

your own family vault your own freehold' .... that's where we'll camp' " (6-L13

300). The four poster bed is pulled from the wagon and put under the south

side of the church, making a nest for the children. Alter making them

comfortable, she walks around the churchyard and enters the crumbling

chapel. She sees the tombs of her ancestors.

They were Canopied, altar-shaped and plain; their carving being defaced and broken; their brasses tom from the matrices;...

As she turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure. ... She discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living person ... she was quite overcome, and sank don nigh to fainting, not however till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form.

He leapt off the slab and supported her. (6-LII, 302)

Here, with ancestors moldering in their tombs, and amongst the trappings of

death, Tess faces her mortality and is offered a stark choice. She can chose to

follow the fate of her ancestors, or she can finally accept Alec's offer of

326 Firor, 259.

179

assistance. She offers a token resistance, but her belief in Angel has finally

cracked. No longing waiting for her lord, she surrenders to Alec. In

exchange for her submission, he will take care of her family.

Rosemarie Morgan suggests that Tess' spirit remained intact even if

Alec "appropriated" her body.327 However, he has broken her spirit by

killing her hope-destroying any expectation of the return of her god. But

Angel does return to reclaim her, in the process paradoxically proving that

Tess's faith in him was not misplaced, but also intensifying her guilt over her

capitulation to Alec. Her realization that Alec has deceived her causes her

"unspeakable despair" and she lashes out at him-" 'You said my husband

would never come back. ... at last I believed you and gave way.... [you] made

me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!' ", i.e., impure.

Tess stabs Alec to cancel "the blood seal. . ., given under the mistletoe

in the darkness of the Chase, and consequently never revoked".328

By killing the one who caused her to sin, she believes she has erased the sin

altogether, and thus made herself acceptable to Angel. He denied her as an

impure woman, but he appears to accept her as murderer. They

have a "strange suspension within a kind of social and moral vacuum" in

their brief interlude after she kills Alec.329 However, Moring suggests that he

leads her to where she can easily be seen and apprehended.330 In an

unconscious version of the Judas kiss, he leads her to Salisbury plain and

Stonehenge, where the landscape is flat for miles around.

327 Morgan, 95.

328 Gose, 269.

329 Millgate, His Career, 276.

330 Moring, 16.

180

Clearly, Tess's happiness cannot last, and Hyman maintains that if she

cannot "have happiness, she prefers to escape her life altogether.331 Tess

never actively seeks suicide. At times she feels undeserving of life, and her

continual bewailing and bewilderment concerning her very existence echoes

throughout the novel. Disgusted with herself for accepting Alec's favors in

the weeks following his direct transgression upon her person, she laments, "

'I wish I had never been bom' " (2-XII, 65). Angel's later marriage proposal

causes her to voice the exact same words to him, in this case due to a sense

that she does not deserve to be happy. Aside from brief interludes with

Angel, she silently mourns "the plight of being alive", thinking that the "one

thing better than leading a good life ... was to be saved from leading any life at

all" (2-Xin, 72; 5-XXXVI 204). Following his cruel treatment of her, she

wishes her "bone[s] would be bare. ... now", and in the aftermath of the

macabre vault scene with Alec, on the brink of realizing that she will have to

go back to him, wonders "Why am I on the wrong side of this door?" (5-XLI,

232; 6-LH, 303).

Even when the policemen come for her she does not say "I am ready to

die", but " 'I am ready' ", which is a significant difference (LVIII, 328). She

simply decides to cease the struggle of life. But where does she die? Did she

seal her fate when she determined to carry the bee hives to market? Or was it

the moment she decided to escape from the Car women on Alec's horse? Did

Angel's repudiation kill her? The murder of Alec was suicidal, but was she

capable of reasonable thought at the time? There is no answer. Just as Tess's

experience in the Chase cannot be identified or labeled by language, Tess's

point of death cannot be determined by language. There is a "presence of

331 Virginia Hyman, 'The Evoltion of Tess", chap. in Ethical Perspectives in the Novels of Thomas Hardy (New York: Kennikat Press, 1975), 120.

181

multiple incompatible explanations of what happens to Tess. They cannot all

be true, and yet they are all there in the words of the novel".332

Critics constantly misconstrue the penultimate chapter. The novel

does not end at Stonehenge, Millgate is one of the few critics who realizes

that "there is no sacrificial apotheosis".333 She lies on the sacrificial stone,

but no matter how fitting it might be, she does not die there in one splendid

transcendental moment. Tess is not swept upward in a moment of glorious

epiphany. Judith Bill says of Stonehenge, that "this place of sacrifice and

worship has fittingly welcomed a wandering pagan home", and Casagrande

agrees that she has returned to the "home of her maternal ancestors, and a

reawakening of strength".334 Friedman comments on her spiritual journey

through the novel, ending in her "Druidical sacrifice to the sun".335 One of

my undergraduate professors told an entire class of forty students that the last

chapter of Tess was a mistake, and that very few authors can make such a

blunder and still be considered great. However, Hardy confound her reader's

expectations. Tess she is executed by a society that has already condemned her

for her past.

Kaja Silverman sees "nothing redemptive" about the final chapter, or

the "joined hands" of Liza-Lu and Angel.336 (7-LIX, 330). In an adherence to

Tess's last wish, he is "watch[ing] over 'Liza-Lu" ( 7-LVIII, 326). As Angel

332 J. Hillis Miller, Distance and Desire (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1970), 128.

333 Millgate, His Career, 272.

334Judith Bill, "The Golden World in Tess of the d'Urbervilles", Thomas Hardy Society Review 1:10 (1984): 310; and Peter Casagrande, Unity, 217.

335 Alan Friedman, 56.

336 Silverman, 25; and (7-LIX, 330).

182

pointed out to Tess at the time, he cannot marry his sister-in-law; the

Marriage Act forbade such arrangements. However, Liza-Lu "carries more

genetic similarity" to Tess than anyone else-only an identical twin would be

closer, but repetition is inevitable.337 For Hardy, "everything already exists

before happens and goes on existing after it has happened in history."338 In a

final cosmic irony, "the President of the Immortals ... had ended his sport

with Tess", but the game is not over (7-LVTII, 330) Liza-Lu is next.

If we accept Julian Wolfrey's definition of the Victorian Gothic novel

as "both a subversive force and a mechanism for social critique", then Tess is

Hardy's most Victorian Gothic novel.339 He overthrows the Gothic tradition

and confounds the reader's expectations, beginning with Tess's violation and

ending with her execution. He subverts the idea of redemption through self­

redemption; instead, Tess's tormented efforts to atone are indicative of an

aberrant mentality.

In the novel Hardy is consumed by the tyranny of social law, and uses

irony and sarcasm to highlight its faults. Society condemns his heroine on

the basis of a "self-righteous, attenuated and misapplied Christianity".340 Tess

can only gain temporary happiness by consciously and deliberately breaking

the law and discarding "civilized self-restraint".341

337 Kevin Padian, 77 " 'A Daughter of the Soil': Themes of Deep Time and Evolution in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d"Urbervilles:. The Thomas Hardy Journal 13:3 (Oct, 1997), 77.

338 J, H illis Miller, Distance and Desire, xi.

339 W olfreys, "Preface", xvi.

340 Garson, 136.

341 Gose.,271

183

In A Pair of Blue Eyes and The Woodlanders, the cliffs and the woods

enhanced the fantastical and unreal elements of the novel, and led to the

double expansion of reality and consciousness, which assisted Hardy in

expressing his sense of the Gothic. However, the author cannot express his

sense of the Gothic in Tess because he denies this experience to his characters.

Tess has a incipient augmentation of her mind and reality during her

morning journey to the market with the bees, but the mood is shattered by

the stark reality of Prince's death. The farm-workers dance at Trantridge

merges fantasy and unreality, and Tess is enticed by such a world. However,

Alec's subsequent actions taint her feelings. The music of Angel's harp

translates Tess's physical sensations into a spiritual dimension, but such

transcendence ends with the cessation of the music, and any sense of

sublimity is negated by the blighted garden. The scene of planting fires also

has sublime potential, but Alec's ghastly appearance destroys that chance.

Meanwhile, the Gothic images he employs simply highlight the reality that

the past is inescapable.

In place of sublimity, Hardy offers grotesque discordance, In place of

limitless expansion, Hardy offers harsh reality. As, J. Hills Miller notes that

"reality is without order. It is an amphorous mass in random movement".342

In Tess, the Gothic fails as a medium of expression, as Hardy can only express

the disorder inherent in the Gothic.

342 J. Hills Miller, Distance and Desire, 255.

184

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSIONS

Matthew Arnold noted that post-romantic writers, like Hardy and

himself, inhabited, " 'a pause in which the turn to a new mode of spiritual

progress is being accomplished' ".343 Hardy explored the Gothic as a medium

of faith, a way to express his spiritual intuitions in the absence of belief in a

benevolent God. Paraphrasing Byron, who in turn paraphrased Shakespeare,

he declared: "the material world is so uninteresting, human life is so

miserably bounded, circumscribed, cabin'd, cribb'd, confined. I want another

domain for the imagination to expatiate in".344 A ready domain presented

343 Matthew Arnold, 'The Function of Criticism" in Complete Prose Works 3: 281-82.; qtd. in Ross Murfin, Swinburne, Hardy, Lawrence and the Burden of Belief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 19.

344 This is a paraphrase from Lord George Gordon Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Canto IV, Stanza 127, who in turn paraphrased it from Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IE, Scene I, line 24. The actual quotation is from William Archer, "Real Conversations:

185

itself in the Gothic. Through the Gothic, he could allude to cosmic conditions

and the human condition, acknowledge the numinous, expand his

imagination and reality, and explore possibilities that verge on truth.

Gothic modes of representation enabled him express his sense of the

Gothic, but they also served another purpose. Through eighteenth and

nineteenth-century tropes, figures, themes, and interpretations he was able to

offer covert or overt social commentary. Instead of supporting the ideologies

of the time, as Radcliffe did, Hardy questioned Victorian convictions. Often

employing an ironic tone, he was able to subvert authoritarian and autocratic

institutions and beliefs. In A Pair of Blue Eyes, Hardy implicitly criticized

archaic medieval codes and highlighted the circumscribed role of women in

the Victorian era-they were either wife or mother, or in Elfride's case, dead.

Through dramatizing Grace's plight in The Woodlanders, Hardy was able to

imply that the rigid religious laws that forbade divorce were themselves

immoral. In Tess, Hardy overtly condemns medieval Christian dogma and

the tyrannical social law that dooms Tess.

Aside from questioning established beliefs, Hardy differed from

traditional Gothic writers in his use of the supernatural. Brooks noted that

"Hardy had to deny himself the aid of the supernatural in persuading his

readers to accept strange events".345 While many of his poems and short

stories acknowledge the presence of otherworldly forces, his novelistic

presentations are more subtle, as he generates an aura of implicative

supernaturalism to accompany his implausible events and improbable

coincidences.

Recorded by William Archer, conversation I.-With Mr. Thomas Hardy," The Critic XXXVIIIApril 1901, 316.

345 Jean Brooks, 140.

186

Like Lewis and Maturin, Hardy suggests that many apparently

supernatural events are the products of an agitated mind. In Desperate

Remedies, he postulates that the allegedly unusual sounds and sights that

Cytherea perceives throughout the novel are projections of her imagination.

However, he also raises the possibility that Cytherea's faculties are intact; that

her anomalous experiences are real. Unexplainable by any normal means,

they may alert her to the presence of outside agencies. Similarly, in A Pair of

Blue Eyes, he intimates that excess pressure causes Elfride to believe

erroneously that Mrs. Jethway is following her. Yet, Hardy also appears to

allow that the widow may actually possess the supernatural ability to appear

and disappear at will, and she is using this power selectively to unnerve

Elfride. In presenting the inexplicable, Hardy neither denies nor affirms any

supernatural influence. He does not explain any mysterious events in his

novels because "if the Gothic can be explained it is no longer Gothic".347

While Hardy looked to the Gothic as a medium of faith in 1869,

Thomas Carlyle had aff^jmed in 1836 that literature was the new spiritual

belief. In the guise of Professor Teufelsdrockh, he asked:

'But there is no Religion?' reiterates the Professor. 'Fool! I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well considered all that lies in this immeasurable froth-ocean we name LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine Church- Homiletic lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay fractions even of a Liturgy.'348

347Kincaid, 3.

348 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, (1836) qtd. in Prose of the Victorian Period, ed. William Buckler (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 102-166..

187

In other words, surveying the ruins of one disintegrating religion, man will

rebuild it in a different manner, choosing a different prayer book and liturgy

from the chaos of literature.

Whether Hardy thought literature should replace the liturgy cannot be

determined, but he did think that it played an important role in life. He came

to this view gradually, over the course of time. Early in his career, he told

Leslie Stephen that he only wanted to be considered "a good hand at a

serial".349 He further noted, that "living in a world where nothing bears out

in practice what it promises incipiently, I have troubled myself little about

theories.350 He insisted that his novels were personal impressions only and

expressed displeasure that some contemporary critics regarded his "works of

art as if they were a scientific system or philosophy".351

Nevertheless, in a surreptitious interview in 1905, he condemned

current literature for "the absence of a philosophic standpoint", maintaining

that most writings lacked "some sustained criticism-the outcome of modem

knowledge-on the relations of man to the universe ... [which] are essential in

literature".352

Although he did not explicitly express such an idea, Hardy was

moving towards a place where literature took precedence over religion;

where literature offered profound truths, no matter how unpalatable that

truth might be. With Tess and Jude, he believed he had pushed that tmth as

far as he could in the novelistic form. The Theatre of the Absurd was still

349 Qtd. in Millgate, Biography, 173.

350 Thomas Hardy, EL, 201.

351 Thomas Hardy, L Y, 175.

352 W. Smithland, 4.

188

fifty years away, although Hardy had already incorporated some of its themes

in his fiction-the irrationality and unreality of life and the doubleness in

people and language, manifested in unstable irony. In fact, Jean Brooks

contends that time has shown that Hardy's probabilities and coincidences, his

"anti-realistic devices, to be imaginative truths about cosmic Absurdity rather

than the author's incompetence".353

Financially secure, Hardy gave up novel-writing in 1896 to return to

his first love, poetry. His belief in the existence of what he termed, "non-

rationalistic subjects ... lying at the indifferent point between rationality and

irrationality", i.e., the Gothic, still persisted, with many of his poems

testifying to that fact. In his verse, he was able to bring in magic, fantasy, and

the supernatural, elements that would not fit into the Victorian conviction

that novels should have at least the appearance of verisimilitude.354 Freed

from the constraints of the narrative form, only in his poetry was Hardy

finally able to truly express his sense of the Gothic.

353 Ibid., 7.

354 Thomas Hardy, LY, 90.

189

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M. H., et. al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 5th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1986. 2 vols.

Acton, William. The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in Childhood, Youth, Adult Age, and Advanced Life Considered in Their Physiological Social and Moral Relations (1857). 4th ed. London: John Churchill, 1865, n. pg. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 179-83.

Adams, Francis. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.)The Fortnightly Review 1 July 1892: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 219-20.

Adamson, Jane. "Tess, Time and its Shapings." Critical Heritage 26 (1984): 18- 36.

Alcorn, John. "Hardy: A Better World." In The Novel From Hardy to Lawrence. London: Macmillan, 1977. 1-24.

Alexander, Christine. " That Kingdom of Gloom' ": Charlotte Bronte, the Annuals, and the Gothic." Nineteenth-Century Literature 47 (1993): 409-38.

Alexander, Grace. "A Portrait Painter of Real Women." New York Times 13 June 1908.

Altick, Richard. Victorian People and Ideas. New York: Norton, 1973.

Alvarez, A. "Jude the Obscure." Chap. in Hardy : A Collection of CriticalEssays, ed. Albert Guerard. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. 113-22.

Amos, Arthur. "Accident and Fate: The Possibility for Action in A Pair of Blue Eyes." English Literature in Transition (1880-1920) 15 (1972): 158- 67.

Anderson, Howard. "Introduction", in The M onk. By Lewis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. v-xvii.

190

Anonymous. "Books From Hardy's Max Gate." Colby Library Quarterly 2 (1950): 246-54.

Anonymous. "Literary Portraits. XIL-Mr. Thomas Hardy." Daily Mail 6 July, 1907: 3.

Anonymous. "Celebrities at Home: No. Ccccxl. Mr. Thomas Hardy at Max Gate, Dorchester." The World 17 Feb. 1886:6-7.

Anonymous. "Mr. Hardy's MSS." The Daily News 23 Oct. 1911:1.

Anonymous. (Review of Desperate Remedies.) The Athenaeum ,No. 2266,1 April 1871: 399.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) TheAthenaeum 23 Nov. 1895: 709. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 240-43.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) The Bookman (New York) Jan. 1896: n.p. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 267-8.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) The Bookman (London) Jan.1896: n.pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 269-71.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) The Guardian 13 Nov. 1895: n.pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 235-6.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) Illustrated London News 11 Jan. 1896: Cviii, 50. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 264-6.

191

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) The Pall Mall Gazette 12 Nov. 1895: n.pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 232-3.

Anonymous. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) Saturday Review 8 Feb. 1896: lxxxi, 153-54. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 274-8.

Anonymous. "Hardy the Degenerate." The World 13 Nov. 1895: n.pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 237-8.

Anonymous. (Review of The Return of the Native.) Spectator ,8 Feb. 1879: 181-2; quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. 114-17. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series, ed. Graham Clarke. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) The Athenaeum 9 Jan. 1892: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 76-8.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) The Bookman Feb. 1892: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 189-90.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) The Independent 25 Feb. 1892:n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 197-200.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Pall Mall Gazette 31 Dec. 1891:3. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 173-5.

192

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Patch YI Feb. 1892: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 201-2,

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Review of Reviews Feb. 1892: 298-316.: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 191.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Review of Reviews July 1892: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 221-2.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Saturday Review, 16 Jan. 1892: 73-74. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 181-3.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) The Speaker 26 Dec. 1891: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 170-2.

Anonymous. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Westminster Review Dec. 1892: cxxxviii, 655-9. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 223-6.

Anonymous. (Review of The Woodlanders.) The Athenaeum 26 March,1887: 414. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols.

Anonymous. (Review of The Woodlanders.) Saturday Review 2 April, 1887: Ixiii, 484-5. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm

193

Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 159-62.

Anonymous. "Rural Authors—39. Thomas Hardy." The Countryman July, 1936: 525-28.

Anonymous. 'Thomas Hardy: A Talk With the Wessex Novelist of Casterbridge." Daily Chronicle 8 Feb. 1905.

Arnold, Matthew. "The Study of Poetry" in Essays in Criticism, Second Series. In Prose of the Victorian Period, ed. William E. Buckler (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 501-9.

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey (1818). Vol. V, The Novels of Jane Austen. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1948.

Austin, Linda. "Hardy's Laodicean Narrative." Modern Fiction Studies 35:2 (Summer 1989): 211-22.

Axton, William F. "Introduction." In Melmoth the Wanderer. By Maturin. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1961. vii-xviii.

Bailey, J.O. "Hardy's 'Mephistophelian Visitants.' " PMLA 61 (1946): 1146-84.

Balaila, A. Aziz. "Desperate Remedies: Not Just a Minor Novel." The Thomas Hardy Journal 14:1 (Feb. 1998): 65-74.

Baldick, Chris. 'Introduction". In The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Ball. David. "Hardy's Experimental Fiction." English: The Journal of the English Association 35 (151): 27-36.

Bayer-Berenbaum, Linda. The Gothic Imagination: Expansion in GothicLiterature and Art. Rutherford, Madison, and Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1982.

Beatty. C.J.P. "Introduction." In Desperate Remedies. By Hardy. London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., reprint 1975. 11-31.

. "Far From the Madding Crowd: A Reassessment." InThomas Hardyand the Modern World: Papers Presented at the 1973 Summer School, d. F.B. Pinion. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society, 1974. 14-36.

Beer, Gillian. "Finding a Scale for the Human: Plot and Writing in Hardy's Novel." Chap. in Darwin's Plots: Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin,

194

George Eliot and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983. 236-258.

Benton, Richard. ’The Problems of Literary Gothicism." ESQ 18 (1972): 5-9.

Bernstein, Stephen. "Form and Ideology in the Gothic Novel." Essays in Literature 18:2: (Fall 1991): 151-65.

Bill, Judith R. "The Golden World in Tess of the d'Urbervilles" Thomas Hardy Society Review 1:10 (1984): 307-10.

Black, Clementina. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Illustrated London News 9 Jan. 1892: part c, 50. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 179-80.

Bloom, Harold. Afterword. Frankenstein or,The Modern Prometheus,by Mary Shelley. New York: Penguin, 1983. 212-23.

Bloom, Harold. Thomas Hardy Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.

Blythe, Ronald. "Introduction". In A Pair of Blue Eyes By Hardy. London: Macmillan "New Wessex' ed., reprint 1975 with different pagination, 1985. xi-xxvii.

Bolduc, Stevie Anne. "The Imperative for Individualism: Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 4:3-4 (Aug.1983): 196-206.

Bonica, Charlotte. "Nature and Paganism in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles." ELH49 (1982): 849-62.

Botting, Fred. Gothic. The New Critical Idiom Series, ed. John Drakakis. London: Routledge, 1996.

Bouce, Paul-Gabriel. Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Totowa, N.J.: Manchester University Press, 1981.

Boumelha, Penny. Thomas Hardy and Women: Sexual Ideology and Narrative Form. Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1982.

Brady, Kristin. 'Tess and Alec: Rape or Seduction?" Thomas Hardy Annual 4 (1986): 127-47.

Brantlinger, Patrick. "What is 'Sensational' About the 'Sensation Novel?"' Nineteenth-Century Literature 37 (June 1982): 1-28.

195

Brick, Allan. "Paradise and Consciousness in Hardy's Tess" Nineteenth- Century Fiction 17:2 (Sept. 1962): 115-34.

Bromwich, David. "Poetic Invention and the Self-Unseeing." Grand Street 7:1 (Autumn 1971): 115-29.

Brooks, Jean. Thomas Hardy: The Poetic Structure. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971.

Brown, Douglas. 'Transience Intimated in Dramatic Forms." From chap. in Thomas Hardy. London: Longmans, 1954; reissued 1961, 70-89; reprinted in Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels, ed. R.P. Draper. Macmillan Education Casebook Series, ed. A.E. Dyson. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1987. 157-70.

Brown, Joanna Cullen, ed. Thomas Hardy: Figures in a Wessex Landscape. London: Allison and Busbt, 1987.

Brown, Marshall. "A Philosophical View of the Gothic Novel." Studies in Romanticism 26 (1987): 275-301.

Brueggemann, Brenda Jo. "Thomas Hardy: A Study of His Philosophy-its Function and its Implications in His Major Novels and its Implications for Modem Man." The Thomas Hardy Year Book 17 (1988): 43-50.

Buckler, William, ed. The Major Victorian Poets: Tennyson, Browning, Arnold. Riverside Edition. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1973.

. Prose of the Victotian Period. Riverside Edition. Houghton Mifflin:Boston, 1958.

Bullen, J.B. The Expressive Eye: Fiction and Perception in the Work of Thomas Hardy. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1986.

Bullough, Vem. "Nineteenth Century Attitudes Toward Sex." Chap. in Sexual Variance in Society and History. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1976.

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1759), 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Butler, A. J. "Mr. Hardy as a Decadent." National Review May 1896: xxvii, 384-90. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information

196

Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 279-85.

Byron, Lord George Gordon. Selections from "Child e Harold's Pilgrimage,"In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 5th ed. Vol. 2. Gen. ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1986. 2 vols. Canto HI, XCIfl, lines 860-65; and Canto El, XCV, lines 888-95, pgs. 514-37.

Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus. (1836). Qtd. in Prose of the VictorianPeriod, ed. William Buckler (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), 102-166.

Carlyle, Thomas. "Shooting Niagara: And After?" (1867), in Prose ofVictorian Period, ed. William E. Buckler (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958). 167-75.

Carpenter, Richard. "Hardy's 'Gurgoyles.' " Modern Fiction Studies 6:3 (Autumn 1960): 223-32.

Carpenter, William Benjamin. Principles of Mental Physiology (1874), 2nd. ed. London: Henry S. King, 1875,24-8,516-17, 519-20,539-41. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 95-101.

Casagrande, Peter. "The Shifted 'Centre of Altruism' in The Woodlanders: Thomas Hardy's Third 'Return of a Native.' " ELH 36 (March 1971): 104-25.

. Unity in Hardy's Novel's: 'Repetitive Symmetries'. London:Macmillan, 1982.

Chapman, Raymond. "The Worthy Encompassed by the Inevitable: Hardyand a New Perception of Tragedy." The Twelfth International Thomas Hardy Conference. Dorchester, 2 Aug. 1996.

Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. A Dictionary of Symbols (1969).Trans. John Buchanan-Brown (1994). London: Penguin, 1996.

Claridge, Laura. "Tess: A Less Than Pure Woman Ambivalently Presented." Texas Studies in Literature and Language 28 (Fall 1986): 324-38.

Clark, Kenneth. The Gothic Revival: An Essay on the History of Taste (1928). 2nd ed. Liverpool: Pelican Books, 1964.

Clarke, Graham, ed. Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'TheContemporary Response." The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols.

197

. Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 2 'The Writer and thePoet." The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols.

. Writers, Writing and Wessex. Vol. 3, Thomas Hardy. The HelmInformation Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols.

. A Twentieth Century Overview. Vol. 4, Thomas Hardy. The HelmInformation Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols.

Clifton-Taylor, Alec. The Cathedrals of England. London: Thames and Hudson, 1967.

Collins, Deborah. Thomas Hardy and His God: A Liturgy of Unbelief. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1990.

Collins, Philip. "Pip the Obscure: Great Expectations and Hardy's Jude." Critical Quarterly 19 (1977): 23-35.

Combe, George. The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects (1828), 5th ed. Edinburgh: John Anderson, 1835, 50-2,140-1, 218- 21, 235-6. In Embodied Selves, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 29-40.

Conolly, John. "The Physiognomy of Insanity." In Medical Times and Gazette 16, 3-4. 2 Jan. 1858. In Embodied Selves, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.18-22.

Cox, R.G. ed. Thomas Hardy. The Critical Heritage Series, gen. ed. B. C. Southam. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1970.

Cramer, Jeffrey S. "The Grosteque in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders." The Thomas Hardy Yearbook 8 (1978): 25-9.

Creighton, T.R.M. "Some Thoughts on Hardy and Religion." Chap. inThomas Hardy After Fifty Years, ed. Lance St. John Butler. London: Macmillan, 1977. 64-77.

Crompton, Louis. "The Sunburnt God: Ritual and Tragic Myth" in TheReturn of the Native." Boston University Studies in English 4 (1960): 229-40.

198

Cunningham, Gail. The New 'Woman and the Victorian Novel. London:The Macmillan Press, 1978.

Curry, Bryan Timothy. "Philosophical Pessimism and Gothic Convention in the Fiction of Thomas Hardy." Unpub. Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1988.

Daleski, H. M., "Tess of the d'Urberville's: Mastery and Abandon", Essays in Criticism 30 (1980): 326-45.

Dalziel, Pamela. "Hapless 'Destiny': An Uncollected Story of Marginalised Lives." The Thomas Hardy Journal 8:2 (May 1992): 41-49.

Danby, John F. 'The Individual and the Universal." Critical Quarterly 1 (Spring 1959): 5-13. Reprinted in Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels,. Ed. R.P. Draper. Macmillan Education Casebook Series. Gen. ed. A.E. Dyson. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1987. 89-97.

Dave, Jagdish Chandra. The Human Predicament in Hardy's Novels.London: Macmillan, 1985.

Davidson, Donald. "The Traditional Basis of Thomas Hardy's Fiction." Chap. in Hardy : A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Albert Guerard.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. 10-23.

De Laura, David. " The Ache of Modernism' in Hardy's Later Novels." ELH 34 (1967): 380-99.

Devereux, Jo. "Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes: The Heroine as Text." Victorian Newsletter 81 (Spring 1992): 20-23.

Doody, Margaret. "Deserts, Ruins, and Troubled Waters: Female Dreams in Fiction and the Development of the Gothic Novel." Genre 10 (1977): 529-72.

Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companian to English Literture. 6th ed.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Drake, Robert Jr. "The Woodlanders as Traditional Pastoral." Modern Fiction Studies 6:3 (Autumn 1969): 251-7.

Draper, R.P., ed. Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels. Macmillan Education Casebook Series. Gen. ed. A.E. Dyson. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1987.

199

Draper, Ronald, and Martin S. Ray, eds. An Annotated Critical Bibliography of Thomas Hardy. New York: Harvester, 1989.

Durant David. "Ann Radcliffe and the Conservative Gothic." Studies in English Literature 22 (1982): 519-30.

Dutta, Shanta. "Preface." In Ambivalence in Hardy: A Study of His Attitudes Towards Women . Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999. ix-xi.

Eagleton, Terry. "Thomas Hardy: Nature as Language." Critical Quarterly 13:2 (Summer 1971): 155-62.

. Criticism and Ideology: A Study in Marxist Literary Theory. 1976.London: Verso, 1978.

Eagleton, Terry, and John Goode. Track A: "Jude the Obscure: Nature and Culture." Track B: "Jude the Obscure: Forms and Seeings", eds. Keith Walker and John Sutherland. Cassette and Booklet. 1976.

Eakins, Rosemary. 'Tess: The Pagan and Christian Traditions." Chap. in The Novels o f Thomas Hardy, ed. Anne Smith. London: Vision, 1979. 107- 25.

Edmond, Rod. "The Past-marked Prospect7: Reading The Mayor ofCasterbridge." In Reading the Victorian Novel: Detail Into Form. Ed. Ian Gregor. London, 1980.111-27.

Edwards, Duane. "The Ending of Under the Greenwood Tree" The Thomas Hardy Year Book. 8 (1978): 21-22.

Edwards, Suzanne. "A Shadow From the Past." Colby Library Quarterly 23 (March 1987): 32-38.

Eggenschwiler, David. "Eustada Vye, Queen of Night and Courtly Pretender." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 25 (1971): 444-54.

Elliot, Albert. Fatalism in the Works of Thomas Hardy. Ph.D. diss.,University of Pennsylvania, 1939; reprint, Folcraft, PA.: The Folcraft Press, 1969.

Ellis, Kate Ferguson. The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and theSubversion of Domestic Ideology. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1989.

Enstice, Andrew. The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge." Chap. in The Novels of Thomas Hardy, ed. Anne Smith. London: Vision, 1979. 9-22.

Evans, Robert. "The Other Eustacia." Novel 1 (1968): 251-59.

200

Ewing, Emma Mai. "Gothic Mania." The New York Times Book Review. 11 May, 1975:10,12.

Firor, Ruth. Folkways in Thomas Hardy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931.

Fisher, Joe. The Hidden Hardy. Houndsmill, Macmillan, 1992.

Fleishman, Avrom. "The Buried Giant of Egdon Heath." In Fiction and the Ways of Knowing: Essays on British Novels. Austin, TX.: University of Texas Press, 1978. 110-22.

Ford, George H. "Felicitous Space: The Cottage Controversy." Chap. inNature and the Victorian Imagination, eds. U.C. Knoepflmacher and G.B. Tennyson, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

Foucault, Michel. La Volente de savoir (1976). Rpt. in English as The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books House, 1978. 3 Vols.

Frank, Frederick. Guide to the Gothic: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1984.

Friedman, Alan. 'Thomas Hardy: Weddings Be Funerals." In The Turn of the Novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966. 36-74.

A.G.G. 'Thomas Hardy: A Character Study." The Daily News 14 March, 1908: 5.

Gadek, Lois Groner. "Tragic Potential and Narrative Perspective inHardy's The Return of the Native: A Study in Tone." The Thomas Hardy Year Book 14 (1987): 25-35.

Gallivan, Patricia. "Science and Art in Jude the Obscure." Chap. in TheNovels of Thomas Hardy, ed. Anne Smith. London: Vision, 1979. 126- 44.

Galton, Francis. Inquires Into Human Faculty and its Development. London: Macmillan, 1883, 61-5. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny BoumeTaylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 330-2.

Garrett, Peter K. "Double Plots and Dialogical Form in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth Century Fiction 32 (1977): 1-17.

201

Garson, Marjorie. Hardy's Fables of Integrity: Woman, Body, Text. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1991.

Gatrell, Simon. Hardy the Creator: A Textual Biography. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1988.

Garwood, Helen. 1909. 'Thomas Hardy: An Illustration of the Philosophy of Schopenhauer." Ph.D. diss, University of Pennsylvania; reprint, Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1911; reprint, Norwood Editions, 1976.

Gerber, Helmut, and W. Eugene Davis, eds. Thomas Hardy: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him. De Kalb, IL.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1973-1983. 2 vols.

Gilbert, Sandra, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, CN.: Yale University Press, 1979.

Giordano, Frank.I'd Have My Life Unbe." Thomas Hardy's Self-Destructive Characters. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984.

Girard, Rene. La Violence et le sacre (1972). Rpt. in English as Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1977.

Goldstein, Norma Walrath. "Thomas Hardy's Victorian Gothic: Reassessing Hardy's Fiction." Unpub. Ph.D. diss. University of Rhode Island, 1989.

Goode, John. Thomas Hardy: The Offensive Truth. Oxford: Basil Blackwood, 1988

Gordon, Jan B., "Origins, History, and the Reconstitution of Family: Tess's Journey", ELHA 43 (1976), 368-88.

Gose, Elliott B., Jr. "Psychic Evolution: Darwinism and Initiation in Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 18:3 (Dec. 1963): 261-72.

Gosse, Edmund. (Review of Jude the Obscure. )Cosmopolis Jan. 1896: 60-9. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 253-9.

Graff, Gerald, and Bruce Robbins. Cultural Criticism. Chap. in Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English an American Literary Studies. New York: Modem Language Association of America, 1992. 419-36.

202

Gregor, Ian. The Great Web: The Form of Hardy's Major Fiction. London: Faber and Faber, 1975.

. "Introduction." In The Woodlanders. By Hardy. London:Penguin, 1981. 11-29.

. "Contrary Imaginings: Thomas Hardy and Religion." The ThomasHardy Journal 2 (May 1986): 17-36.

Gregor, Ian and Irwin, Michael. "Either Side of Wessex." Chap. in Thomas Hardy After Fifty Years, ed. Lance St John Butler. London: Macmillan, 1977.

Greenblatt, Stephen, and Giles Gunn, eds. Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of Ebglish an American Literary Studies. New York: Modem Language Association of America, 1992.

Guerard, Albert. "Introduction. In Hardy: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963. 1-9.

Guerard, Albert, ed. Hardy : A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Haggerty, George. "Fact and Fancy in the Gothic Novel." Nineteenth- Century Literature 30 (1985): 379-91.

. Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form. University Park, PA.: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 1989.

Hands, Timothy. "Architecture." In Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy. Ed. Norman Page. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 13-18.

Hannigan, D. F. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) Westminster Review Jan.1896: cxlv, 136-9. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 260-3.

Harding, James. 'The Signification of Arabella's Missile: Feminine Sexuality, Masculine Anxiety and Revision in Jude the Obscure." The Journal of Narrative Technique 26 (Winter 1996): 86-111.

Hardy, Barbara. "Thomas Hardy." In Tellers and Listeners: The Narrative Imagination. London: Athlone Press, 1975. 175-205.

203

______. Under the Greenwood Tree: A Novel About the Imagination/'Chap. in The Novels of Thomas Hardy, ed. Anne Smith. London: Vision, 1979. 45-57.

Hardy, Thomas. Desperate Remedies (1871). With an introduction by C.J.P. Beatty. London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint, 1990.

. Under the Greenwood Tree (1872). With an introduction byGeoffrey Grigson. London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975.

. A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873). With an introduction by Ronald Blythe.London: Macmillan "New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint with different pagination, 1985.

. Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), ed. Robert Schweik. NortonCritical Edition: An Authoritative Text, Background, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1986.

. The Hand of Ethelberta (1876). With an introduction by RobertGittings. London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint with different pagination, 1986.

. The Return o f the Native (1878), ed. James Gibson. Norton CriticalEdition: An Authoritative Test, Background, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1969.

. The Trumpet-Major (1880). With an introduction by Barbara Hardy.London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint, 1990.

. A Laodicean (1881). With an introduction by Barbara Hardy.London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint, 1990.

. The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), ed. James Robinson. NortonCritical Edition: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1977.

. The Woodlanders (1887). With an introduction by David Lodge.London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed. 1975; reprint with different pagination, 1985.

. Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), ed. Scott Elledge. 2nd. ed. NortonCritical Edition: An Authoritative Text, Hardy and The Novel, Criticism. New York: Norton, 1979.

204

. Jude the Obscure (1895), ed. Norman Page. Norton Critical Edition:An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources of Criticism. New York: Norton, 1978.

. The Well-Beloved (1897). With an introduction by J. Hillis Miller.London: Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed., 1975; reprint, 1990.

. The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, ed. James Gibson. London;Macmillan 'New Wessex' ed. 1976; reprint 1994.

. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy (1840-1891) (London: Macmillan,1928); and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy (1892-1928) (London: Macmillan,1930), reprint in one volume (London: Studio Expressions, 1994), (reprintpage numbers identical to original edition). '

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, Vol. 1:1840-1892, eds. R. L.Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1978. 7 vols.

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy II: 1893-1901, eds. R. L. Purdyand Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1980. 7 vols.

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy III: 1902-1908, eds. R. L. Purdyand Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1982. 7 vols.

r

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy IV: 1909-1913, eds. R. L. Purdyand Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1984. 7 vols.

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy V: 1914-1919, eds. R. L. Purdyand Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1985. 7 vols.

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy VI: 1920-1925, eds. R. L. Purdyand Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1987. 7 vols.

. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy VII: 11926-1927, eds. R. L.Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1987. 7 vols.

. Letter to the Editor. St. James Gazette 19 Jan. 1883:14.

. 'The Science of Fiction." The New Review April, 1891: 315-9.

. "Why I Don't Write Plays." Pall Mall Budget 1 Sept. 1892:1313-4.

. Letter to the Editor. The Daily Chronicle 9 Feb. 1905.

Hart, Francis. "The Experience of Character in the English Gothic Novel." In Experience in the Novel: Selected Papers From the English I

205

Institute. Ed. Roy Harvey Pearce. New York: Columbia University - Press, 1968. 58-105.

Hassett, Michael. "Compromised Romanticism in Jude the Obscure ." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 25 (1971): 432-43.

Henley, W.E. "Review [The Return of the Native]." Academy 30 November, 1878: xiv, 517; quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. 107-8. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series, ed. Graham Clarke. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993.

Hennessy, Brian. The Gothic Novel. Essex: Longman, 1978.

Hogle, Jerrold. 'The Restless Labyrinth: Cryptonomy in the Gothic Novel." Arizona Quarterly 36 (1980): 330-58.

Holland, Henry. Chapters on Mental Physiology. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852, 78-9, 90-4,113-5,125-8. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 115-22.

Holland, Norman H. and Leona F. Sherman. "Gothic Possibilities." New Literary History 8 (1977): 279-94.

Homback, Bert. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Chap. in The Metaphor of Chance: Vision and Technique in the Works of Thomas Hardy.Athens, OH.: Ohio U.P., 1971.

Houghten, Walter. The Victorian Frame of Mind 1830-1870. New Haven: Yale U.P., 1957.

Howard, Jacqueline. Reading Gothic Fiction: A Bakhtinian Approach. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1994.

Howells, Coral Ann. Love, Mystery, and Misery: Feeling in Gothic Fiction. London: Athlone Press, 1978.

Howells, W.D. (Review of Jude the Obscure), Harper's Weekly 7 Dec. 1895: n. pg. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 245-7.

206

Hume, Robert. "Gothic Versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel" PMLA 84 (1969): 282-90.

Humma, John B. "Language and Disguise: The Imagery of Nature and Sex in Tess." South Atlantic Review 54 (Nov. 1989): 63-83.

Hutton, R.H. (Review of The Woodlanders.) Spectator 26 March 1887: 419- 20. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 153-5.

. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Spectator 23 Jan. 1892:121-2.Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. 184-6. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series, ed. Graham Clarke. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993.

Hyman, Virginia. 'The Evolution of Tess." Chap. in Ethical Perspectives in the Novels of Thomas Hardy. New York: Kennikat Press, 1975.

Ingham, Patricia. "Introduction." In Jude the Obscure. By Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. xi-xxvii.

Ingham, Patricia. Thomas Hardy. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989.

Irving, Howe. Thomas Hardy. New York: Macmillan, 1967. Masters of World Literature, gen. ed. Louis Kronenberger.

James, Douglas. 'The Grave-Worm." The Daily News and Leader 5 Nov. 1912: 6.

Jacobus, Mary. "Hardy's Magian Retrospect." Essays in Criticism 32 (1982): 258-79.

Jedrzejewski, Jan. Thomas Hardy and the Church. Houndsmill: Macmillan Press, 1996.

Johnson, S. F. "Hardy and Burke's Sublime." Chap. in Style in Prose Fiction, ed. Harold C. Martin. New York: n. p., 1959. 55-86.

Juhl, Marianne and Bo Hakan Jorgensen. "Maiden Defiance and Impotence." Chap. in Diana's Revenge - Two Lines in Isak Dinesen's Authorship. Translated by Anne Bom. Gylling, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1985.

207

Kincaid, James. " 'Designing Gourmet Children or, KIDS FOR DINNER/ "Chap. in Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth Century. Eds. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys. Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000. 1-11.

King, Jeanette. "Thomas Hardy: Tragedy Ancient and Modem." Chap. in Tragedy in the Victorian Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.

Kramer, Dale, ed. Critical Approaches to the Fiction of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan, 1979.

Lang, Andrew. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) New Review Feb. 1892: vi, 247-9. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 187-8.

Langbaum, Robert. Thomas Hardy in Our Time. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1995.

Lawrence, D.H. "Study of Thomas Hardy (Le Gay Savaire)." Chap. in Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays (1936), ed. Bruce Steele. The Works of D.H. Lawrence Series, eds. Boulton, James, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. 7-128.

Le Gallienne, Richard. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) Idler, Feb. 1896: ix, 114-5. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 272-3.

. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Star23 Dec. 1891: n. pg.Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 167-9.

Lemer, Laurence, and John Holmstrom, eds. Thomas Hardy and His Readers: A Selection of Contemporary Reviews. London: Bodley Head, 1968.

Lewis, Matthew. The Monk (1796), ed. Howard Anderson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Lewis, Paul. "Mournful Mysteries: Gothic Speculation in The Scarlet Letter." The American Transcendental Quarterly 44 (1979): 279-93.

. "Mysterious Laughter: Humor and Fear in Gothic Fiction. Genre 14 (1981): 309-27.

Lodge, David. 'Tess, Nature, and the Voices of Hardy." Chap. in Language of Fiction: Essays in Criticism and Verbal Analysis of the English Novel. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966. 164-88.

. "Introduction." In The Woodlanders . By Hardy. London:Macmillan, 1974. xi-xxix.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. "Response a la question: qu'est-ce que laepostmodeme?" Rpt. in English as "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism." Trans. Regis Durand. In La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir (1979). Rpt. in English as The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennigton and Brian Massumi. Manchester: Manchester U.P., 1984. 71- 82.

MacAndrew, Elizabeth. The Gothic Tradition in Fiction. New York Columbia University Press, 1979.

McDowell, Frederick P. "Hardy's 'Seemings or Personal Impressions': The Symbolical Use of the Image and Contrast in Jude the Obscure."Modern Fiction Studies 6 (Autumn 1960): 233-50.

McGhee, Richard D. 'Introduction." In Marriage, Duty, and Desire in Victorian Poetry and Drama. Lawrence, KA.: The Regents Press of Kansas, 1980.

. " 'Swinburne Planteth, Hardy Watereth': Victorian Views of Painand Pleasure in Human Sexuality." Chap. in Sexuality and Victorian Literature, ed. Richard Cox. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.

Mallock, William Hurrell. Is Life Worth Living? London: Chatto and Windus, 1879.

Mallory, Thomas. "The Devil and Thomas Hardy: A Study of theManifestations of Supernatural Evil in Hardy's Fiction." Unpub. Ph.D. diss, University of Illinois, 1957.

Masse, Michelle. "Gothic Representations: Husbands, Horrors and Things That Go Bump in the Night." Signs 15:4 (1990): 679-709.

209

Matchett, William. "The Woodlanders, or Realism in Sheep's Clothing." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 9 (1955): 241-61.

Maturin, Charles Robert. Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1961.

Melfi, Mary Ann. "Jude the Obscure: Childhood Without Closure." Durham University Journal 87:2 (July 1995): 315-20.

Michie, Helena. The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Mighall, Robert. A Geography of Victorian Gothic Fiction: Mapping History's Nightmares. Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1999.

Miller, J. Hillis. "Introduction." In The Disappearance of God. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963. 1-16.

. Thomas Hardy: Distance and Desire. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Pressof Harvard University Press, 1970.

. Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels. Oxford: Blackwell,1982.

. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Repetition as Immanent Design." InFiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels. Oxford: Blackwell,1982.116-46.

. 'Topography and Topography in Thomas Hardy’s 'In Front of theLandscape.”' In Identity of the Literary Text, eds. Mario J. Valde and Owen Miller. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985): 73-91.

. "Some Implications of Form in Victorian Fiction." In VictorianSubjects. New York: Harvester, 1991. 79-90.

Miller, J. Hillis. 'Topography in The Return of the Native." Essays in Literature 8 (1981): 119-34.

Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist. London:Bodley Head, 1971.

. Thomas Hardy: A Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.

. "The 'Discarded' Preface to A Pair of Blue Eyes." The Thomas HardyJournal 13:3 (Oct. 1997): 58-9.

210

Millingen, John Gideon. The Passions; or Mind and Matter. London: J. and D. Darling, 1848. 157-9. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 169-70.

Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." In The Works of John Milton, ed. FrankAllen Paterson. New York: Columbia Press, 1931. Book DC, lines 996-8, Vol. II, part II, pgs. 295-6.

Mistichelli, Michael. "The Trumpet-Major's Signal: Kinship and SexualRivalry in the Novels of Thomas Hardy. CEA Critic 56:3 (1994): 43-61.

Miyoshi, Masao. The Divided Self: A Perspective on the Literature of the Victorians. New York: New York University Press, 1969.

Moers, Ellen. Literary Women. London: W. H. Allen, 1978.

Moore, Kevin. "The Poet Within the Architect’s Ring: Desperate Remedies, Hardy's Hybrid Detective-Gothic Narrative." Studies in the Novel 14 (Spring 1982): 31-42.

Morgan, Rosemarie. Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy. London: Routledge, 1988.

Moring, Meg. "The Dark Glass: Mirroring and Sacrifice in Shakespeare'sOthello and Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Conference of College Teachers o f English Studies 56 (1991): 12-18.

Morrell, Roy. Thomas Hardy: The Will and the Way. Kuala Lumpur: n.p., 1965.

Morris, Mowbray. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Quarterly Review April 1892: clxxiv, 319-26. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 213-18.

Murfin, Ross C. Swinburne, Hardy, Lawrence and the Burden of Belief Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.

Napier, Elizabeth. "Preface" and "Introduction." In The Failure of Gothic: Problems of Disjunction in an Eighteenth-Century Literary Form. Oxford: Claredon, 1987.

Neale, Catherine. "Desperate Remedies: The Merits and Demerits of Popular Fiction." Critical Survey 5:2 (1993): 115-22.

211

Nelson, Lowry, Jr. "Night Thoughts on the Gothic Novel." Yale Review 52 (1962): 236-57.

Neiman, Gilbert. "Was Hardy Anthropomorphic?" Twentieth Century Literature 2:2 Gan., 1957): 86-91.

Nemesvari, Richard. "Appropriating the Word: Jude the Obscure asSubversive Apocrypha." Victorian Review 19:2 (Winter 1993): 48-66.

Newey, Vincent. 'The Disinherited Pilgrim: Jude the Obscure and ThePilgrim's Progress." Durham University Journal 80:1 (Dec. 1987): 59-61.

Newey, Vincent. "Thomas Hardy and the Forms of Making: Interpreting Jude the Obscure." Chap. in Centering the Self: Subjectivity, Society and Reading from Thomas Grey to Thomas Hardy. Aldershot: Scolar Press,1995. 214-65.

Norman, Madeleine. "Hardy and Schopenhauer." Unpub. Ph.D. diss.Toronto University, 1940.

Novak, Maximillian. "Gothic Fiction and the Grotesque." Novel: A Forum on Fiction" 13 (1979): 50-67.

Mrs. Oliphant. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Blackwood's Magazine March 1892: cli, 464-74. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 203-12.

. The Anti-Marriage League." Blackwood's Magazine, Jan. 1896: clix,135-49. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 The Contemporary Response:, ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 248-52.

Olsen, Donald J. The Growth of Victorian London. N.p.: Batsford, 1976; reprinted Hammondsworth:Pemguin, 1979.

Padian, Kevin. " 'A Daughter of the Soil': Themes of Deep Time andEvolution in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles." The Thomas Hardy Journal 13:3 (Oct. 1997): 65-81.

Page, Norman. "Hardy's Dutch Painting." Thomas Hardy Year Book 5 (1976): 39-42.

"Hardy's Deathbeds." Thomas Hardy Annual 3 (1985): 93-110.

212

, ed. Oxford Reader's Companion to Hardy. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2000.

Paterson, John. "The Return of the Native as Antichristian Document." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 14 (1959): 111-27.

. The Making of The Return of the Native. University of CaliforniaPublication, English Studies: 19, eds. Bronson, B.H., et al. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960.

Paterson, John. 'The Continuing Miracle: Nature and Character in Thomas Hardy." In Budmouth Essays on Thomas Hardy: Papers Presented at the 1975 Summer School, ed. F.B. Pinion. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society, 1976. 140-153.

Patmore, Coventry. (Review of The Woodlands.) St. James Gazette 2 April 1887. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 156-8.

Peck, John. "Hardy's The Woodlanders: The Too Transparent Web." English Literature in Transition 24:3 (1981): 147-54.

Phillips, Adam. "Introduction." In A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. By Burke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. ix-xxiii.

Pick, Daniel. "Terrors of the Night’: Dracula and ’Degeneration’ in the Late Nineteenth Century." Critical Quarterly 30.4 (1988): 71-87.

Pinion, F.B. A Hardy Companion. London: Macmillan, 1968.

. Hardy the Writer: Surveys and Assessments. Houndsmill:Macmillan, 1990.

Pinion, F.B., ed. Thomas Hardy and the Modern World: Papers Presented at the 1973 Summer School. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society,1974.

. Budmouth Essays on Thomas Hardy: Papers Presented at the 1975Summer School. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society, 1976.

Plazner, Robert. "Gothic versus Romantic: A Rejoinder." PMLA 86 (1971): 269-93.

213

Porte, Joel. "In the Hands of an Angry God: Religious Terror in GothicFiction. Chap. in The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism, ed. G.R. Thompson. Pullman, WA.: Washington State Press, 1974. 42- 64.

Punter, David. The Literature of Terror: A History of Gothic Fiction From 1765 to the Present Day. London: Longman, 1980.

Purdy, Richard. Thomas Hardy: A Bibliograpical Study . New York: n.p.,1954.

Putnam, Margaret. The Primacy of the Past: The Mill on the Floss. GreatExpectations, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Unpub. Ph.D. diss. U. of Texas /Austin, 1977.

Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries of Udolpho. 1794. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.

. "On the Supernatural in Poetry." New Monthly Magazine Vol. 7(1826): 145-52.

Richter, David. 'The Gothic Impulse: Recent Studies." Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction 11 (1983): 279-311.

Rideing, William H. Many Celebrities and a Few Others: A Bundle of Reminiscences. London: G.Bell and Sons, 1912.

Ringe, Donald. American Gothic: Imagination and Reason in Nineteenth- Century Fiction. Lexington, KY.: University Press of Kentucky, 1982.

Eds. Robbins, Ruth, and Julian Wolfreys. Victorian Gothic: Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth Century. Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000.

Roberts, Patrick. "Patterns of Relationship in Desperate Remedies." The Thomas Hardy Journal 8:2 (May 1992): 50-7.

Robertson, Fiona. Legitimate Histories: Scott, Gothic, and the Authorities of Fiction. Oxford: Claredon Press, 1994.

Ruskin, John. "The Nature of Gothic." Volume II, Chapter VI in TheStones of Venice. (1851-1853). In Prose of the Victorian Period, ed. William E. Buckler. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958. 361-92.

Sage, Victor and Allan Lloyd Smith, eds. "Introduction." In Modern Gothic:A Reader. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.

214

Saunders, Andrew. The Victorian Historical Novel: 1840-1880. London: Macmillan, 1978.

Saxelby, F. Outwin. A Thomas Hardy Dictionary: The Characters and Scenes of the Novels and Poems Alphabetically Arranged and Described. London: Routledge, 1911.

Schleifer, Ronald. "The Trap of the Imagination: The Gothic Tradition, Fiction, and 'The Turn of the Screw/ "Criticism 22 (1980): 297-317.

Schoenburg, Nadine. 'The Supernatural in Tess/' The Thomas Hardy Year Book 19 (1989): 49-53.

Schur, Owen. "Desire in The Well-Beloved." CEA Critic 57:2 (1995): 77-85.Schweik, Robert. "The Ethical Structure of Hardy's The Woodlanders."

Archiv 211 (1974): 31-44.

. "Foreword." In Far from the Madding Crowd. By Hardy. NewYork: Norton, 1986. ix-xii.

Scott, James F. 'Thomas Hardy's Use of the Gothic: An Examination of Five Representative Works." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 17 (1963): 363-80.

. "Spectacle and Symbol in Thomas Hardy's Fiction." PhilologicalQuarterly 44 (1965): 527-44.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. The Coherence of Gothic Convention. New York: Methuen, 1986.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus (1816). New York: Penguin, 1983.

Shine, Hill, ed. Booker Memorial Studies: Eight Essays on Victorian Literature in Memory of John Manning Booker. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950.

Silverman, Kaja. "History, Figuration and Female Subjectivity in Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 18 (Fall 1984): 5-28.

Smith, Anne, ed. "Introduction." In The Novels of Thomas Hardy.London: Vision, 1979. 7-8.

Smith, Curtis C. "Natural Settings and Natural Characters in Hardy's Desperate Remedies and A Pair of Blue Eyes. Thoth: Syracuse University Graduate Studies in English 1967(8): 84-97..

215

Smithland, W. 'Thomas Hardy: A Talk With The Wessex Novelist of Casterbridge." Daily Chronicle 8 Feb. 1905:4.

Sonstroem, David. "Order and Disorder in Jude the Obscure/' English Literature in Transition (1880-1920) 24 (1981): 6-15.

Southerington, F.R. "The Return of the Native: Thomas Hardy and the Evolution of Consciousness." In Thomas Hardy and the Modern World: Papers Presented at the 1973 Summer School. Ed. F.B.Pinion. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society, 1974. 37-47.

Spector, Stephen. "Flight of Fancy: Characterization in Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree." ELH 55:2 (Summer 1988): 469-85.

Spencer, Kathleen. ’’Purity and Danger: Dracula, the Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis.’’ English Literary History 59 (Spring 1992): 197-225.

Squires, Michael. "Arcadian Innocents." From chap. in The Pastoral Novel. Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1974, 151-66, 170-72; reprinted Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels, ed. R.P. Draper. Macmillan Education Casebook Series, ed. A.E. Dyson. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1987.180-94.

Stambaugh, Sara. The Witch and the Goddess. Ann Arbor: Unversity of Michigan, 1988.

Stansky, Peter, ed. The Victorian Revolution: Government and Society in Victoria's Britian. New York: New Viewpoints, 1973.

Stocking, George W., Jr. Victorian Anthropology. New York: The Free Press, 1987.

Sully, James. 'The Dream as a Revelation." Fortnightly Review, March 1893, 54-65. Quoted in Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 106-10.

Summers, Montague. The Gothic Quest: A History of the Gothic Novel(1938). New York: Russell and Russell, 1964.

Sumner, Rosemary. "Discoveries of Dissonance: Hardy's Late Fiction." The Thomas Hardy Journal 6:3 (Oct. 1995): 79-88.

Sutherland, John. Is Heathcliff a Murderer?: Great Puzzles in Nineteenth- Century Literature. World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996.

216

• Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?: More Puzzles in Classic Fiction. World'sClassics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Swann, Furse. 'Thomas Hardy and the Appetite for Joy." Powys Review 3 (12) 39-47.

Swigg, Richard. "Thomas Hardy and the Problem of the 'Middle Distance'" Chap. in Lawrence, Hardy, and American Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1972. 3-31.

Symonds, John Addington. Sleep and Dreams. London: Longman, Brown, 1851, 23,25-28. In Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890, eds. Jenny Bourne Taylor and Sally Shuttleworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. 130-32.

Tanner, Tony. "Colour and Movement in Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Critical Quarterly 10 (1968): 219-39.

Taylor, Jenny Bourne and Sally Shuttleworth, eds. Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts 1830-1890. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Taylor, Richard H., ed. The Personal Notebooks of Thomas Hardy. London: Macmillan Press, 1978.

. The Neglected Hardy: Thomas Hardy's Lesser Novels. London:Macmillan Press, 1982.

Thompson, G.R. "Introduction: Romanticism and the Gothic Tradition." In The Gothic Imagination: Essays in Dark Romanticism. Pullman, WA.: Washington State Press, 1974. 1-10.

Thomson, David. England in the Nineteenth Century: 1815-1914 (1950). Vol.8 The Pelican History of England. Great Britain: Penguin, 1973. 9 vols.

Thurley, Geoffrey. The Psychology of Hardy's Novels: The Nervous and the Statuesque. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press,1975.

Tomlinson, T.B. "Hardy's Universe: Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Critical Review 16 (1973): 19-38.

Tompkins, J.M.S. The Popular Novel in England 1770-1800. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1961.

217

Tyrrell, R. Y. (Review of Jude the Obscure.) Fortnightly Review June 1896: lxv, 857-64. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 286-92.

Van Ghent, Dorothy. "On Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Chap. in The English Novel: Form and Function. New York: n.p., 1953.

Varma, Devendra. The Gothic Flame: Being a History of the Gothic Novel in England (1957) New York: Russell and Russell, 1964.

Vicinus, Martha, ed. Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age. Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1972.

Vigar, Penelope. The Novels of Thomas Hardy: Illusion and Reality.London: Athlone Press, 1974.

Wall, Kathleen. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles: The Maid Who Went to the Merry Green Wood." Chap. in The Callisto Myth from Ovid to Atwood. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988.

Wallace, William. (Review of The Woodlanders.) Academy 9 April, 1887: xxxi, 251-2. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 "The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 163-4.

Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Otranto (1764). London: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Ward, Paul. "A Pair of Blue Eyes and the Descent of Man." The Thomas Hardy Yearbook 5 (1975): 47-55.

Wasserman, Julian. "Love Among the Gothic Ruins: The FailedPlatonism of Jude Fawley." American Benedictine Review 35 (1984): 285-301.

Watson, William. (Review of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.) Academy 6 Feb.1892: xli, 125-6. Quoted in Thomas Hardy: Critical Assessments. Vol. 1 'The Contemporary Response", ed. Graham Clarke. The Helm Information Critical Assessments of Writers in English Series. East Sussex: Helm Information, 1993. 4 vols. 192-6.

218

Watt, R.J.C. "Hopkins and the Gothic Body." Chap. in Victorian Gothic:Literary and Cultural Manifestations in the Nineteenth Century. Eds. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys. Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000. 60-89.

Weber, Carl. "Hardy: Twin Voice of Shakespeare." Shakespeare Association Bulletin 9 (1934): 91-97.

. "Hardy and The Woodlanders." Review of English Studies 15(1939): 330-33.

. "Hardy's Grim Note in "The Return of the Native." Papers of theBibliographical Society of America 36 (1942): 37-45.

. "The Tragedy in Little Hintock: New Light on Thomas Hardy'sNovel, The Woodlanders." Chap. in Booker Memorial Studies: Eight Essays on Victorian Literature in Memory off John Manning Booker, ed. Hill. Shine. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950. 133-53.

. Hardy and the Lady From Madison Square. Port Washington, N.Y.:Kennikat Press, 1952.

. "Hardy's Copy of Schopenhauer." Colby Library Quarterly 4 (1957):217-24.

Webster, Harvey Curtis. On a Darkling Plain. University of Chicago Press, 1947: reprint London: Frank Cass and Co., 1964.

Wheeler, Otis B. "Four Versions of The Return of the Native." Nineteenth- Century Fiction 14 (1959): 27-44.

Widdowson, Peter. "Hardy, 'Wessex', and the Making of a National Culture." Thomas Hardy Annual 4(1986)45-69.

. Hardy in History: A Study in Literary Sociology. London:Routledge, 1989.

. "A Laodicean: Hardy's 'Worthless' Novel." Victorian Narrationand Sensation Conference. Worchester School of Higher Education, 4 March, 1995.

. Thomas Hardy. Plymouth, England: Northcote House in associationwith the British Council, 1996.

219

Wiesenfarth, Joseph. "Introduction." In Gothic Manners and the Classic English Novel. Madison, WL: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 3-22.

. "Jude the Obscure: Gothic Manners in Western Civilization." InGothic Manners and the Classic English Novel. Madison, WL: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. 141-60.

Williams, Anne. Art of Darkness: a Poetics of Gothic . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Williams, Melanie. 'The Law of Marriage in Jude the Obscure." Nottingham Law Journal 5:2 (1996): 168-86.

Williams, Merryn. "A Post-Darwinian Viewpoint of Marriage." Chap. inThomas Hardy and Rural England. London: 1972, 157-68; reprinted in Thomas Hardy: Three Pastoral Novels, ed. R.P. Draper. Macmillan Education Casebook Series. Gen. ed. A.E. Dyson. Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1987. 170-79.

Wilt, Judith. Ghost of the Gothic: Austen, Eliot, and Lawrence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Wittenberg, Judith. "Early Hardy Novels and the Fictional Eye." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 16:2 (Winter 1983): 151-64.

Wolfreys, Julian. "Preface" to Victorian Gothic: Literary and CulturalManifestations in the Nineteenth Century. Eds. Ruth Robbins and Julian Wolfreys. Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2000. xi-xx.

Wotten, George. Thomas Hardy: Towards A Materialist Criticism. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1985.

Wright, Terrance. "Space, Time, and Paradox: The Sense of History in Hardy's Last Novels." Essays and Studies 44 (1991): 41-52.

Wright, Walter. "A Novel is an Impression, Not An Argument."Budmouth Essays on Thomas Hardy: Papers Presented at the 1975 Summer School. Dorchester: The Thomas Hardy Society, 1976. 154-67.

Young, William Lawson. "Thomas Hardy and Edmund Burke: A Study in Gothic Sublimity." Unpub. Ph.D. diss. University of Southern Mississippi, 1993.

Zabel, Morton Dauwen. "Hardy in Defense of His Art." In Hardy : ACollection of Critical Essays. Ed. Albert Guerard. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice-Hall, 1963. 24-45.